Judge who is familiar with the Constitution says children born here are Americans, just like the 14th Amendment says

A federal judge in Boston today barred the Musk administration from trying to enforce its White House occupant's diktat that babies born on American soil are not necessarily Americans, even if the 14th Amendment, which remains part of the Constitution, explicitly says they are.

In a ruling on lawsuits brought by an expectant immigrant woman here on a legal visa, two Boston-area immigrant-aid groups and several states and cities, including Massachusetts, US District Court Judge Leo Sorokin issues a preliminary injunction that bars what passes for a federal government these days from refusing to grant passports and recognize other government citizenship documents for anybody born to many immigrant parents after Feb. 19.

The executive order would essentially turn these babies into stateless individuals who could be simply booted from the country at the will of an out-of-control dictator in a way even the current administration has yet to say it can do to American citizens (although one Republican Congressman has called for deporting American citizens).

Sorokin, however, wrote that in a nation of laws, all of the government's arguments were bad and that its lawyers should feel bad trying to foist them on the country in blatant disregard of the 14th Amendment, which was passed after the Civil War in part to grant citizenship to freed slaves, who had no proof of citizenship and which rather simply states:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Or as Sorokin explained to Justice Department lawyers:

First, allegiance in the United States arises from the fact of birth. It does not depend on the status of a child's parents, nor must it be exclusive, as the defendants contend. Applying the defendants' view of allegiance would mean children of dual citizens and lawful permanent residents would not be birthright citizens - a result even the defendants do not support. Next, the defendants argue birthright citizenship requires the mutual consent of the person and the Nation. This theory disregards the original purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment: to recognize as birthright citizens the children of enslaved persons who did not enter the country consensually, but were brought to our shores in chains. There is no basis to think the drafters imposed a requirement excluding the very people the Amendment aimed to make citizens. Simply put, the Amendment is the Nation's consent to accept and protect as citizens those born here, subject to the few narrow exceptions recognized at the time of enactment, none of which are at issue here. Finally, the Amendment requires states to recognize birthright citizens as citizens of their state of residence. The text includes no domicile requirement at all.

Each of the defendants' theories focuses on the parents, rather than the child whose citizenship is at stake. In so doing, these interpretations stray from the text of the Citizenship Clause. The Fourteenth Amendment says nothing of the birthright citizen's parents, and efforts to import such considerations at the time of enactment and when the Supreme Court construed the text were rejected. This Court is likewise bound to reject such theories now.

The ruling does not mean that the plaintiffs in the two suits will ultimately prevail. However, Sorokin, who is overseeing both cases, said they are "likely to succeed on the merits of their claims," in large part because of an 1898 ruling by the Supreme Court upholding the basic principal of 14th Amendment birthright citizenship:  Any baby born on American soil is immediately an American citizen.

And the legal precedents, which also include a law codifying the principle passed by Congress in 1940 and "followed consistently by the Executive Branch for the past 100 years,"  are so strong that "a single district judge would be bound to apply that settled interpretation, even if a party were to present persuasive arguments that the long-established understanding is erroneous," he wrote.

Also, Sorokin continued, the plaintiffs all showed proof of immediate potential harm should he not block the government while the cases proceed.

Doe [the expectant mother; here on a legal visa] has plainly established injury, to herself and her unborn child, that is concrete, imminent, traceable to the [executive order], and redressable by the relief she seeks in this lawsuit. The same is true of the association plaintiffs, which provide services impacted by the EO and have described one or more members facing the same type of injury as Doe.

The states - and the cities of Washington, DC and San Francisco - similarly showed they face significant potential harm, in part because they stand to lose federal aid for programs that are based on population, he wrote.

Each plaintiff faces irreparable harm, the defendants face none, and the public interest favors enjoining the EO. Accordingly, the plaintiffs in each case are entitled to an injunction preventing implementation of the EO. The individual and two associations who are plaintiffs in the earlier-filed action will be fully protected by an injunction limited to the individual and the members of the associations. The later-filed case, brought by eighteen states and two cities, requires a broader, nationwide injunction. Applying traditional equity principles, such relief is necessary because the record establishes that the harms these plaintiffs face arise not only from births within their borders, but also when children born elsewhere return or move to one of the plaintiff jurisdictions.