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A federal judge has blocked Donald Trump’s executive order denying US citizenship to children born in the country of unauthorized immigrants, dealing a blow to an immigration clampdown that is a top priority of his second presidency.

John Coughenour, a US district judge in Washington state, on Thursday called the policy “clearly unconstitutional”, as he issued a temporary restraining order halting the president’s ban, according to sources. media reports.

The decision stems from a lawsuit filed Tuesday by four Democratic state attorneys-general led by Washington state — one of several legal challenges quickly mounted against the order. Trump was signed on Monday, just a few hours after being sworn in as president.

Coughenour’s decision marks the first legal setback for the Trump administration just three days after returning to the White House. The wave of executive orders signed by the president has many of them focused immigration – set off what are sure to be fierce and fraught legal battles.

Other Democratic state attorneys-general as well as civil rights groups this week filed separate lawsuits to invalidate the birthright ban, all alleging similar violations of the 14th Amendment, which as all “persons born or naturalized in the US . . . citizens of the United States.”

The Washington attorney general’s office said: “If allowed to stand, the unconstitutional and un-American order could cause thousands of newborns and children in Washington to lose their abilities completely and equal participation in American society as citizens, despite the Constitution’s guarantee. of their citizenship.”

Oregon, Arizona and Illinois joined the lawsuit.

Trump’s order instead argued that the 14th Amendment does not “extend citizenship to all persons born” in the US.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Earlier this week, it said the charges were about “resistance to the left” and the administration would face them in court.

The Justice Department said in a filing Wednesday that the order “is an important part of President Trump’s recent actions, consistent with his significant authority in the area of ​​immigration, to address the breakdown the country’s immigration system and the country’s ongoing crisis. southern border“.