A federal judge on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump’s latest executive order aimed at restricting birthright citizenship, ruling that the measure is almost certainly unconstitutional.
US District Judge Deborah Boardman of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction after immigrant rights groups challenged the order, which Trump signed on August 6. The ruling marks another legal setback for the administration’s efforts to narrow the long-standing constitutional right of children born on US soil to automatic citizenship.
Boardman noted that the Supreme Court had already established that children covered by the class action before her are citizens at birth. “The Supreme Court has spoken: Children in the certified class are ‘citizens at birth’,” she wrote, adding that Trump’s latest order was “almost certainly unconstitutional”.
The new directive followed a June Supreme Court ruling on Trump’s earlier attempt to limit birthright citizenship. It specifically targeted so-called “birth tourism” and sought to deny citizenship in certain cases involving children of foreign nationals, including some temporary visitors and people the administration classified as “alien enemies”.
Justice Department lawyers argued that the challenge was premature because federal agencies had not yet issued detailed guidance on implementing the order. They also maintained that the Supreme Court’s earlier decision did not rule out every possible exception to birthright citizenship.
Boardman rejected those arguments and barred federal agencies from taking steps to deny, interfere with or refuse to recognise the citizenship of children covered by the class action. Agencies may, however, continue preparing implementation guidance under the ruling.
Immigrant rights organisations welcomed the decision, which keeps constitutional protections in place for the children covered by the lawsuit while the broader legal dispute continues.
Birthright citizenship is grounded in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which grants citizenship to people born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction. The issue has become a central element of Trump’s wider immigration policies since his return to the White House.
