A federal judge has stayed US President Donald Trump's order to deny automatic citizenship for babies born to parents here illegally or on temporary visas.
"This is a blatantly unconstitutional order," Senior Judge John Coughenour said on Thursday issuing a 14-day temporary block.
Trump said he would appeal the ruling staying his order limiting birthright citizenship to babies born to citizens and Green Cardholders.
One of the first executive orders he signed after he became President on Monday, is causing consternation among Indians, hundreds of thousands of whom are on temporary visas like H1-B for professionals and L1 for intracompany transferees, or on those for students and visiting academics.
If they had children born after February 19, they would have lost automatic citizenship known as birthright under Trump's order.
Trump campaigned on taking action against the illegal migrants who swamped the country by the millions but extended the citizenship restriction to those here legally also.
The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees citizenship to "all persons born" in the US and their rights cannot be limited.
The Justice Department arguing for the order said it was a part of Trump's attempt to "address this nation's broken immigration system and the ongoing crisis at the Southern border".
Rejecting the submission, Coughenour said that it "boggles" his mind that any lawyer could consider Trump's order constitutional.
The petition was filed by Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon before the federal court in Seattle.
There are similar appeals against the order by other states and cities in other federal courts.
The law firm of Reddy, Neumann, Brown which specialises in immigration matters said it may take three to five years for the matter to be resolved.
The 14th Amendment was passed in 1868 by Congress to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that denied citizenship to the children of freed African American slaves.
The lawyers representing the states in a court filing accused Trump of trying "to impose a modern version" of the Supreme Court's overturned racist ruling.
