Judge to consider future of Trump’s order blocking birthright citizenship
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Maryland is set to consider whether President Donald Trump will be able to redefine the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to exclude the children of undocumented immigrants from birthright citizenship.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman has scheduled a 10 a.m. ET hearing on Wednesday to consider a request by five pregnant undocumented women to issue a preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s Day-1 executive order on birthright citizenship.
The women and the two nonprofits filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that the executive order — which challenged the long-settled interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause — violated the constitution and multiple federal laws.
“If allowed to go into effect, the Executive Order would throw into doubt the citizenship status of thousands of children across the country, including the children of Individual Plaintiffs and Members,” the lawsuit said.
Lawyers for the Department of Justice have claimed that Trump’s executive order attempts to resolve “prior misimpressions” of the Fourteenth Amendment, arguing that birthright citizenship creates a “perverse incentive for illegal immigration.” If permitted, Trump’s executive order would preclude U.S. citizenship from the children of undocumented immigrants or immigrants whose presence in the United States is lawful but temporary.
“Text, history, and precedent support what common sense compels: the Constitution does not harbor a windfall clause granting American citizenship to, inter alia: the children of those who have circumvented (or outright defied) federal immigration laws,” DOJ lawyers argued.
The executive order has already been put on hold by a federal judge in Seattle, who last month criticized the Department of Justice for attempting to defend what he called a “blatantly unconstitutional” order.
“I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar can state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It boggles my mind,” said U.S. District Judge John Coughenour. “Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?”
Because Judge Coughenour’s order only blocked the executive order temporarily, Judge Boardman will consider a longer-lasting preliminary injunction of the executive order.
“The hearing that’s coming up is a proceeding that essentially puts a longer pause,” explained Loyola Marymount University professor Justin Levitt. “It’s an order saying, ‘Don’t implement this,’ because the plaintiffs have shown a likelihood that they’ll succeed when we finally get to a final resolution, but many substantive legal claims are effectively decided on preliminary injunctions.”
With Trump vowing to appeal a ruling that finds his executive order unconstitutional, a preliminary injunction — if granted after Wednesday’s hearing — could be his first opportunity to appeal to a higher court.
Members of the Trump administration spent months crafting this executive order with the understanding that it would inevitably be challenged and potentially blocked by lower courts, according to sources familiar with their planning.
(WASHINGTON) — As deadly wildfires burn through Southern California, President-elect Donald Trump has spent the week attacking Democratic officials and continuing a pattern of spreading misinformation about natural disasters.
“I think that Gavin is largely incompetent, and I think the mayor is largely incompetent, and probably both of them are just stone-cold incompetent,” Trump said on Thursday night while hosting Republican governors at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
Since the fires broke out, Trump has pointed fingers at Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden, spreading false claims about California’s water policy and federal assistance.
For example, Trump blamed Biden as he falsely claimed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had “no money” to help California despite Congress recently passing a disaster relief supplemental totaling $29 billion.
The president-elect also pushed exaggerated claims as he accused Newsom of refusing to sign a “water restoration declaration,” saying he instead diverted water resources in order to protect the endangered Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta’s smelt fish.
“He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
While there are regulations that limit the amount of water pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to protect the species, the governor’s office said there was no such declaration, calling the accusation “pure fiction.”
Biden and other emergency officials have also rejected Trump’s claims, maintaining the fire was caused by fierce winds and extremely dry conditions and that the initial water shortage occurred due to power being shut off in order to avoid sparking additional fires.
Still, Trump has long pushed these claims, suggesting while on the campaign trail that he’d withhold aid from California if Newsom didn’t reinstate Trump’s policies.
“The water coming here is dead. And Gavin Newsom is going to sign those papers, and if he doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to put out all his fires, and we don’t give him the money to put out his fires. He’s got problems,” Trump said at a press conference at his Los Angeles golf course in September.
After a closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans at the Capitol on Wednesday, Trump continued to criticize Newsom’s handling of the pandemic while ultimately asserting that the two would need to work together.
“So, what’s happened is a tragedy, and the governor has not done a good job,” Trump told ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott.
“With that being said, I got along well with him — when he was governor, we worked together very well, and we would work together,” Trump said. “I guess it looks like we’re going to be the one having to rebuild it.”
It isn’t the first time Trump has gone after emergency officials in the wake of disasters. When hurricanes caused devastation in parts of Georgia and North Carolina last year, Trump quickly pivoted his campaign schedule to focus on those areas.
During those visits, Trump repeatedly spread misinformation about FEMA’s response, incorrectly casting blame on federal officials in the Biden administration.
“They got hit with a very bad hurricane, especially North Carolina and parts of Georgia. But North Carolina really got hit. I’ll tell you what, those people should never vote for a Democrat, because they held back aid,” Trump claimed in an October interview.
Local and federal officials warned Trump about how his politically motivated rhetoric could be causing harm as the areas hit attempted to rebuild; however, the president-elect often refused to backtrack.
While visiting Asheville, North Carolina, Trump refused to denounce the violence against FEMA workers after being asked about threats made against the workers.
“I think you have to let people know how they’re doing,” he said. “If they were doing a great job, I think we should say that, too, because I think they should be rewarded. But if they’re not doing — does that mean that if they’re doing a poor job, we’re supposed to not say it?”
As he attacked his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump politicized the events even more, scheduling a hurricane visit alongside Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, whom he had intensely criticized up until that point for his refusal to give in to Trump’s demands around the 2020 election.
In the battleground state of Georgia, Trump’s tune changed: “Your governor is doing a fantastic job, I will tell you that, and we’re all with them and with everybody.”
Now, during his transition, Trump has used his social media platform to share his unfiltered thoughts, often responding to disasters in short, rapid-fire statements, sometimes with misleading context, before all the information has been uncovered.
For example, in the hours after a driver plowed into a crowd on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street, Trump responded online by saying, “The criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country,” falsely implying that the suspect was an immigrant who had crossed into the United States illegally.
The suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was actually a U.S. Army veteran who was born in the U.S. and lived in Houston.
Even while in office, Trump received pushback at times for peddling misinformation.
For example, when he claimed that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian in 2019, leading the National Weather Service to issue a public service announcement refuting Trump’s claims. Then, that same year, when senators first failed to pass disaster relief aid to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico, Trump blamed local leaders as he spread false claims about the amount of assistance they had already been given.
“The people of Puerto Rico are GREAT, but the politicians are incompetent or corrupt,” Trump posted at the time.
Despite this pattern, Republican governors still came to Trump’s defense on Thursday night, touting his leadership skills as president during disasters.
“You could criticize the president-elect, but I think you also have to hold these other people accountable,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters at Mar-a-Lago.
“I worked well with Biden during his time at natural disasters, but I work well with Donald Trump, so I’m very confident as a state that knows we face these that a Trump administration is going to be very strong and is going to be there for the people, regardless of party,” he added.
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday voted to advance Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s controversial nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services under President Donald Trump.
The panel voted along party lines, 14-13.
It was a high-stakes vote for Kennedy, as with the committee’s makeup it would have taken just one Republican to oppose him for his nomination to be potentially sunk.
All eyes were on Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican and longtime physician who, during last week’s hearings, expressed deep concerns about the impact of Kennedy’s past comments casting doubt on vaccines, including saying on a 2023 podcast that “no vaccine is safe and effective.
Cassidy told Kennedy he was “struggling” with his nomination as those proceedings came to a close. The two spoke more over the weekend, according to one person familiar with the discussion, though it’s unclear what was said. Cassidy avoided reporter questions ahead of the vote on that conversation and on whether he’d support Kennedy.
Cassidy voted on Tuesday to move forward with Kennedy’s nomination.
“I’ve had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even this morning,” Cassidy said in a statement posted to X earlier Tuesday, explaining his vote. “I want to thank VP JD specifically for his honest counsel. With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes.”
President Trump said on Monday he’s called senators who have concerns about Kennedy. Vice President JD Vance had also been quietly lobbying senators to line up behind Kennedy, ABC News previously reported.
Kennedy’s nomination will next head to the floor for consideration before the full Senate. A final vote could occur this week or early next week.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that they expect “all Senate Republicans to stand tough and strong” and vote to confirm Kennedy to Trump’s Cabinet.
“Make America Healthy Again, that is a very popular slogan and it’s a very popular movement in this country. And there’s tens of millions of Americans who are hopeful that RFK Junior will be the next HHS secretary and we expect all Senate Republicans to stay on tough and strong and vote for him,” Leavitt said as she gaggled with reporters on Tuesday.
Questions have continued to swirl around Kennedy’s views on vaccines. He said several times during the hearings last Wednesday and Thursday that he supports vaccines and is not “anti-vaccine” but “pro-safety.”
However, Kennedy has openly questioned the widespread administration of both measles and polio vaccines, and has falsely linked the former vaccine to autism, despite several high-quality studies finding no such link.
He also pointed to a flawed paper to suggest there is evidence to claim that vaccines cause autism. Cassidy, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said he saw problems with the paper’s methodology upon first look.
Kennedy also cast doubt on the lifesaving benefits of the COVID-19 vaccines, saying he doesn’t think that “anybody” can say the vaccines saved millions of lives.
A 2022 study from the Yale School of Public Health and University of Maryland Medical School estimated the vaccine saved 3 million lives and prevented 18 million hospitalizations.
Senators were also befuddled by comments Kennedy made in the past. Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado read aloud alleged past comments made by Kennedy, including unfounded claims about transgender children.
Kennedy denied making such comments despite repeated an unfounded conspiracy theory during an episode of his podcast in 2022, suggesting endocrine disruptors, including phthalates — which make chemicals more durable — and pesticides, can influence sexual orientation or gender identity.
ABC News’ Anne Flaherty and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Merrick Garland informed Congress in a letter Wednesday that special counsel Jack Smith has concluded his investigations into President-elect Donald Trump.
Garland informed members of Congress — as required by internal department regulations — that at no time did he interfere in to overrule Smith during the process of his investigation, according to the letter released by the Department of Justice.
Garland also acknowledged in the letter that at this time he is currently barred by district Judge Aileen Cannon from releasing the report outside of the Justice Department, but intends to make Volume One of the report regarding Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election available to the public once he is “permitted to do so” by the courts.
Garland further confirmed he plans to make available the volume of the report pertaining to Trump’s classified documents case available to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for closed-door review as soon as the 11th Circuit permits him to do so.
Volume Two will not be released as of yet due to ongoing court proceedings against Trump’s co-defendants.
“Consistent with local court rules and Department policy, and to avoid any risk of prejudice to defendants Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, whose criminal cases remain pending, I have determined, at the recommendation of the Special Counsel, that Volume Two should not be made public so long as those defendants’ criminal proceedings are ongoing,” Garland wrote.
He continued, “I have determined that once those criminal proceedings have concluded, releasing Volume Two of the Report to you and to the public would also be in the public interest, consistent with law and Department policy.”
The letter was addressed to Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Jamie Raskin, D-Md.