# John Coughenour — "blatantly unconstitutional" > [!quote] "I've been on the bench for over four decades. I can't remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order." > — Judge John Coughenour (W.D. Wash.), from the bench, January 23, 2025 ## Context Said from the bench on **January 23, 2025**, three days after Trump signed [[Executive Order 14160]] attempting to end birthright citizenship. [[John Coughenour]] — a [[Ronald Reagan]] appointee confirmed in 1981 — was hearing a challenge brought by the states of Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon, and he granted a temporary restraining order blocking the order nationwide. He was the **first federal judge in the country** to block EO 14160; addressing the Justice Department attorney, he dismissed the order as "blatantly unconstitutional." His TRO opened the wave of district-court injunctions that led to the merits litigation in [[Trump v. Barbara]]. ## Why this matters The receipt's weight comes from **who said it**: not a liberal appointee but a Reagan-appointed senior judge with a four-decade record, reacting to the administration's birthright-citizenship theory as beneath serious argument. It is a benchmark for how far outside the legal mainstream the [[Birthright Citizenship Attack]] sits — and it prefigured the Supreme Court's eventual rejection of the order in [[Trump v. Barbara]], where the constitutional guarantee nonetheless survived by only a single vote. Heather Cox Richardson foregrounded the line in her June 30, 2026 letter on the decision. ## Verification - **Reporting:** [CNN, Jan. 23, 2025](https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/23/politics/birthright-citizenship-lawsuit-hearing-seattle/index.html); also covered by NBC, PBS, and Democracy Docket. - **Cited in:** [Heather Cox Richardson, *Letters from an American*, June 30, 2026](https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-30-2026). - **Status:** Verbatim, undisputed. ## Related quotes - [[Matt Walsh - use whatever force is necessary]] — the demand-side reaction to the same birthright-citizenship fight, from the opposite pole. ## See also - [[Trump v. Barbara]] — the case Coughenour's ruling set in motion - [[Executive Order 14160]] — the order he blocked