by Jake Goldstein-Street, Washington State Standard
January 27, 2025
Washington state’s case against the Trump administration’s order to end birthright citizenship now includes three pregnant noncitizen women.
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour ordered the state’s lawsuit, filed with Oregon, Arizona and Illinois, to be consolidated with another that the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project filed Friday.
Last week, Coughenour granted a 14-day restraining order blocking the executive action, which is set to go into effect Feb. 19. The judge called President Donald Trump’s order “blatantly unconstitutional.”
Trump signed the executive order in his first hours in office. It would end birthright citizenship for babies born to a mother and father who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution codified birthright citizenship in 1868, and legal precedent has upheld it since.
The Northwest Immigrant Rights Project filed its lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Seattle on behalf of three expectant mothers living in Washington whose children would be born without U.S. citizenship if the executive order goes through.
Attorneys for the Trump administration have argued Washington couldn’t bring the case because the state doesn’t have citizenship rights of its own, so affected individuals needed to be plaintiffs.
“So now we are presenting our clients’ claims, to make sure the federal government answers to the irreparable harm that this Executive Order will otherwise cause without the Court’s intervention,” Matt Adams, an attorney from the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said in an email.
The three women involved in the case worry their children could be born stateless, with citizenship not recognized here or in their parents’ countries of origin. They hoped to represent families in similar situations through a class action lawsuit.
Cherly Norales Castillo fled violence in Honduras in 2023 to settle in Seattle, according to the lawsuit. She and her four-year-old son have a pending asylum application. Her second child is due March 19. The father is also not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.
Delmy Franco Aleman, of Lynnwood, immigrated to the United States from El Salvador in 2015. An immigration judge granted her “withholding of removal,” meaning she is protected from deportation but is not a lawful permanent resident. Her third child is due March 26, according to the lawsuit.
After emigrating from El Salvador in 2016, Alicia Chavarria Lopez now lives in Bothell. She has a pending asylum application with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Her second child is reportedly due July 21.
In 2022, about 153,000 babies were born to two parents without legal immigration status across the country, including 4,000 in Washington, according to the state’s lawsuit.
A hearing on a preliminary injunction seeking to pause the executive order during the litigation is set for Feb. 6 in Seattle. Attorneys have acknowledged the case will likely end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The consolidated case is one of several across the country seeking to block Trump’s order. Eighteen other states filed a similar lawsuit to Washington’s in federal court in Massachusetts. A hearing on a preliminary injunction in that case is set for Feb. 7.
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