Federal Judge temporarily blocked Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship

On Jan. 23, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour blocked for 14 days President Donald Trump's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, saying its "harms are immediate, ongoing, and significant, and cannot be remedied in the ordinary course of litigation."

Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon challenged Trump's order as unconstitutional.

Coughenour's ruling said Trump's order harms the states by directly forcing its agencies to lose federal funding and incur substantial costs to provide medical care and social services to children subject to the order.

The judge said a temporary restraining order was necessary until the court can consider the states' forthcoming motion for a preliminary injunction. The New York Times reported that the judge, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, said Trump's order was "a blatantly unconstitutional order."

Trump told reporters Jan. 23 that his administration would appeal the judge's decision.

Trump's order said birthright citizenship "does not automatically extend" to children born in the U.S. when the mother was "unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person's birth" or when the "mother's presence in the United States at the time of said person's birth was lawful but temporary." There are multiple scenarios in which people can be in the U.S. lawfully but temporarily, such as on student, work or tourist visas.

This promise is one of 75 campaign promises that PolitiFact will track on the MAGA-Meter. Over the next four years, we will periodically evaluate the new administration's progress on Trump's 2024 campaign promises, just as we did with Barack Obama, Trump during his first term, and Joe Biden.

Other states and immigrant rights groups have also sued the Trump administration over the executive order. 

Given the judge's order temporarily blocking Trump's order on birthright citizenship, we rate this promise Stalled. 

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.