>>22419434

https://abcnews.go.com/US/doj-orders-federally-funded-legal-service-providers-stop/story?id=118027656

DOJ orders federally funded legal service providers to stop providing support at immigration courts

The Department of Justice, under new leadership following the inauguration of Donald Trump, has told legal service providers who receive federal funding to stop providing legal orientation and other work intended to support immigrants at immigration courts.

In a memo obtained by ABC News, the DOJ ordered all such legal providers on Wednesday to "stop work immediately" in those areas.

"This email is to send you notification to stop work immediately pursuant to the Executive Order on the following task orders," the memo said. The programs listed in the memo include the Legal Orientation Program; the Immigration Court Helpdesk; the Family Group Legal Orientation Program; and the Counsel for Children Initiative.

Legal service providers are usually present at immigration courts across the country to help individuals navigate immigration court proceedings and handle legal paperwork.

"The suspension of these longstanding programs could leave hundreds of thousands of vulnerable immigrants including children and families without access to basic legal information and representation," a spokesperson for Acacia Center for Justice told ABC News in a statement.

The directive from the DOJ comes a day after ABC News reported that four top officials within the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review the DOJ's office that oversees immigration courts were removed from their positions.

>>22419470

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/us/politics/judge-blocks-birthright-citizenship.html

Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump’s Plan to End Birthright Citizenship

A federal judge in Seattle has issued a temporary order halting the president’s plan.

In a hearing held three days after Mr. Trump issued his executive order, a Federal District Court judge, John C. Coughenour, sided at least for the moment with four states that sued. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s order, issued in the opening hours of his presidency, declared that children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants would no longer be treated as citizens. The order also extended to babies of mothers who were in the country legally but temporarily, such as tourists, university students or temporary workers.

In response, 22 states, along with activist groups and expectant mothers, filed six lawsuits to halt the so-called order, arguing that it violates the 14th Amendment. Legal precedent has long interpreted the amendment — that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States” — applies to every baby born in the United States, with few exceptions.

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Migrants at the border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.Credit…Paul Ratje for The New York Times

In the case before Judge Coughenour of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, who was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, the state attorneys general from Washington, Illinois, Oregon and Arizona had argued that Mr. Trump’s order would deny rights and benefits to more than 150,000 children born each year and leave some of them stateless. States would also lose federal funding for various assistance programs.

In their briefs, the states cite testimony from then-Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger. In 1995, Mr. Dellinger told Congress that a law limiting birthright citizenship would be “unconstitutional on its face” and that even a constitutional amendment would “flatly contradict the nation’s constitutional history and constitutional traditions.”

A separate federal lawsuit filed by 18 other states and two cities is being considered in Massachusetts.