A federal judge who just blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of people in the U.S. illegally says he's not persuaded by the Trump administration's arguments.

Summary

A third federal judge, Joseph N. Laplante, blocked Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants.

His ruling follows similar decisions from judges in Seattle and Maryland.

The lawsuits, led by the ACLU, argue Trump’s order violates the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to nearly all born on U.S. soil.

The Trump administration contends such children are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. Legal battles continue, with appeals underway and further rulings expected in other courts.

  • ShepherdPie
    2·
    14 hours ago

    The concept as applied in Rome and modern Europe doesn’t really matter in this context because we’re talking about US law. It was used here 150 years ago against bandits in the west but still doesn’t apply to this situation at least according to the definition written by Cornell Law:

    Historically, the term “outlaw” was used to refer to a person who was outside of the protection of the law. An accused criminal who refused to submit to legal process was declared to be an outlaw through a process called “outlawry.”

    The catch here is “accused criminal” and “refused to submit to legal process.” Both these term first require that you’re subject to the laws in question, which an “old west bandit” would have been. If you remove legal jurisdiction over these people, you can’t then say they’re breaking your laws and refusing to submit to the legal process because you’ve already defined them as being outside of the bounds of your laws and legal process by stating that they’re not under your jurisdiction.

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/outlaw