BOSTON: A federal judge in Boston on Thursday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order that would end birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are in the US illegally, becoming the fourth judge to do so.
The ruling from US District Judge Leo Sorokin came three days after US District Judge Joseph Laplante in New Hampshire blocked the executive order and follows similar rulings in Seattle and Maryland.
Sorokin said in a 31-page ruling that the “Constitution confers birthright citizenship broadly, including to persons within the categories described” in the president’s executive order.
The Boston case was filed by the Democratic attorneys general of 18 states and is one of at least nine lawsuits challenging the birthright citizenship order.
“President Trump may believe that he is above the law, but today’s preliminary injunction sends a clear message: He is not a king, and he cannot rewrite the Constitution with the stroke of a pen,” the attorneys general said in a statement.
In the case filed by four states in Seattle, US District Judge John C. Coughenour said the Trump administration was attempting to ignore the Constitution, with the president trying to change it with an executive order.
A federal judge in Maryland issued a nationwide pause on the order in a separate but similar case involving immigrants rights groups and pregnant women whose soon-to-be-born children could be affected. The Trump administration said Tuesday that it would appeal that ruling to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
In the Boston case, the attorneys general from 18 states, along with the cities of San Francisco and Washington, D.C., asked Sorokin to issue a preliminary injunction. That means the injunction will likely remain in place while the lawsuit plays out.
They argue that the principle of birthright citizenship is “enshrined in the Constitution,” and that Trump does not have the authority to issue the order, which they called a “flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands of American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage.”
They also argue that Trump’s order would cost states funding they rely on to “provide essential services” — from foster care to health care for low-income children, to “early interventions for infants, toddlers, and students with disabilities.”
At the heart of the lawsuits is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. That decision found that Scott, an enslaved man, wasn’t a citizen despite having lived in a state where slavery was outlawed.
The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.
Attorneys for the states argue that it does and that it has been recognized since the amendment’s adoption, notably in an 1898 US Supreme Court decision. That decision, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, held that the only children who did not automatically receive US citizenship upon being born on US soil were the children of diplomats, who have allegiance to another government; enemies present in the US during hostile occupation; those born on foreign ships; and those born to members of sovereign Native American tribes.
The US is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil” — is applied. Most are in the Americas, and Canada and Mexico are among them.
Fourth federal judge blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship order
https://arab.news/4y2vu
Fourth federal judge blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship order
Australian political leaders launch election campaigns focused on first-time homeowners
MELBOURNE: Australia’s rival political leaders offered Sunday competing policies to help Australians buy a home ahead of the nation’s first federal election in which younger voters will outnumber the long-dominant baby boomer generation.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and opposition leader Peter Dutton officially launched their parties’ campaigns ahead of the May 3 elections.
Helping aspiring homeowners buy into a national real estate market in which prices are high and supply is constrained due to inflation, builders going broke, shortages of materials and a growing population was central to both campaigns.
“Buying a first home has never been easy, but for this generation, it’s never felt further out of reach,” Albanese told his supporters in the west coast city of Perth.
“In Australia, home ownership should not be a privilege you inherit if you’re lucky. It should be an aspiration that Australians everywhere can achieve,” he added.
The governing center-left Labor Party promised Sunday 10 billion Australian dollars ($6.3 billion) in grants and loans to build 100,000 new homes over eight years exclusively for first-homebuyers, who would only have to pay a 5 percent deposit instead of the current minimum 20 percent, with the government paying the remainder.
Opposition promises to reduce housing demand
Dutton’s conservative Liberal Party promised to ease demand for housing by banning foreign investors and temporary residents from buying existing homes for two years while reducing immigration and foreign student numbers.
Spain busts ring bringing Moroccans in via Romania
MADRID: Spanish police said on Sunday they had broken a ring that had brought in up to 2,500 Moroccan irregular immigrants via Romania, arresting four suspects.
The four were detained in the southeastern Murcia province on charges of belonging to a criminal organization and facilitating irregular migration, the Guardia Civil said in a statement.
The Moroccans entered Europe by plane to Romania, from where they were transported to Spain, with each one charged 3,000 euros ($3,400) for the voyage, it said. The suspects were alleged to be the ringleaders of the organization. Their nationalities were not specified.
Spanish authorities believe the ring organized 50 such trips over the past two years, each one composed of between 20 and 50 Moroccans, making for a total of between 1,000 and 2,500 irregular immigrants.
The outfit was alleged to have a “logistics center” in Romania where it hid the migrants while they awaited their transport to Spain.
The Guardia Civil said the operation to bust the ring was conducted with the help of Europol and the European Union’s border patrol agency Frontex.
Dozens reported killed in east Congo as government, rebels trade blame
- Renewed fighting has killed some 3,000 people and worsened one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises
GOMA: At least 50 people were killed in weekend attacks in Congo’s conflict-battered east, authorities said Saturday. The government traded blame with Rwanda-backed rebels over who was responsible for the violence that quickly escalated the conflict in the region.
The renewed violence that residents reported in and around the region’s largest city of Goma — which the M23 rebels control — was the biggest threat yet to ongoing peace efforts by both the Gulf Arab state of Qatar and African nations in the conflict that has raised fears of regional warfare.
Goma resident Amboma Safari recounted how his family of four spent the night under their bed as they heard gunfire and bomb blasts through Friday night. “We saw corpses of soldiers, but we don’t know which group they are from,” Safari said.
The decades-long conflict between Congo and the M23 rebels escalated in January, when the rebels made an unprecedented advance and seized the strategic eastern Congolese city of Goma, followed by the town of Bukavu in February.
The latest fighting has killed some 3,000 people and worsened what was already one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with around 7 million people displaced.
At least 52 people were killed between Friday and Saturday, including a person shot dead at Goma’s Kyeshero Hospital, Congo’s Ministry of Interior said in a statement that blamed the attack on M23.
M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka issued a statement blaming Congolese forces and their allies for the attacks. Kanyuka said Congo’s joint operations with local militias and southern African troops “directly threaten the stability and security of civilians” in the region.
The group said it has been compelled to “reconsider its position to prioritize the security” of the people in the area, suggesting the crisis could worsen. Christian Kalamo, a civil society leader in the North Kivu province that includes Goma, said at least one body was seen on the streets on Saturday.
“It is difficult to know if it is the Wazalendo, the FARDC (Congolese forces) or the M23” that carried out the attacks, Kalamo said. “Now, we don’t know what will happen, and we live with fear in our stomachs, thinking that the war will resume.”
Tanzania opposition party barred from upcoming elections
DAR ES SALAAM: Tanzania’s main opposition party has been disqualified from upcoming general elections, the country’s election chief said, after it refused to sign an electoral code of conduct.
The east African nation has increasingly cracked down on its opposition ahead of a general election due in October.
The opposition Chadema party has accused President Samia Suluhu Hassan of returning to the repressive tactics of her predecessor, John Magufuli.
Chadema leader Tundu Lissu, who was arrested and charged with treason earlier in the week, previously said that his party would not participate in the polls without electoral reform.
On Saturday, Chadema said the party’s secretary-general John Mnyika would not attend an Independent National Elections Commission meeting to sign the government’s electoral code of conduct.
The decision was “informed by the lack of a written response” to the party’s “proposal and demands for essential electoral reforms,” it said in a statement.
INEC Director of Elections Ramadhani Kailima said following the meeting that “any party that hasn’t signed today will not be allowed to take part in the general election or any other elections for the next five years.” “There will be no second chance,” he told reporters.
He did not mention Chadema by name, and the party has not commented on the INEC’s decision.
Tanzania is scheduled to hold presidential and national assembly elections in October.
President Hassan’s party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi swept to victory in local elections last year.
Chadema said those elections had been manipulated, and that it would petition the high court to demand reforms ahead of the upcoming polls.
Lissu last year warned that Chadema would “block the elections through confrontation” unless the electoral system was reformed.
The opposition’s demands have been long ignored by the ruling party.
Hassan was initially feted for easing restrictions imposed by Magufuli on the opposition and the media in the country of 67 million people.
But rights groups and Western governments have criticized what they see as renewed repression, with the arrests of Chadema politicians as well as abductions and murders of opposition figures.
Bangladesh reintroduces ‘except Israel’ phrase on passports
- Israel is a flashpoint issue in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, which does not recognize it
- In 2021, the words “except Israel” were removed from passports
DHAKA: Bangladesh has restored an “except Israel” inscription on passports, local media reported Sunday, effectively barring its citizens from traveling to that country.
Israel is a flashpoint issue in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, which does not recognize it.
The phrase “valid for all countries except Israel,” which was printed on Bangladeshi passports for decades, was removed during the later years of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure.
Nilima Afroze, a deputy secretary at the home ministry, told Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) news agency on Sunday that authorities had “issued a directive last week” to restore the inscription.
“The director general of the department of immigration and passport was asked to take necessary measures to implement this change,” local newspaper The Daily Star quoted Afroze as saying Sunday.
In 2021, the words “except Israel” were removed from passports, although the then government under Hasina clarified that the country’s stance on Israel had not changed.
The country’s support for an independent Palestinian state was visible on Saturday when around 100,000 people gathered in Dhaka in solidarity with Gaza.
The Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
A fragile ceasefire between the warring parties fell apart last month and Gaza’s health ministry said Sunday that at least 1,574 Palestinians had been killed since then, taking the overall death toll since the war began to 50,944.
