Federal judge blocks Trump's new birthright citizenship order

A U.S. district judge in Maryland has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s newest executive order that sought to restrict birthright citizenship. The order, issued on Aug. 6, targeted so-called “birth tourism” and proposed denying citizenship to children of foreign nationals involved in commercial transactions for citizenship or classified as “alien enemies.”

Judge Deborah Boardman granted a preliminary injunction, stating the order is “almost certainly unconstitutional” because the Supreme Court’s June decision in Barbara v. Trump already affirmed that the children covered by the order are citizens at birth. > “The Supreme Court has spoken: Children in the certified class are ‘citizens at birth,’” Boardman wrote.

The Supreme Court had ruled 6-3 that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship, except for narrow exceptions such as children of diplomats or invading armies. The constitutional principle has been upheld in earlier cases, including U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.

Immigrant-rights groups, including the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, filed the challenge, building on a prior injunction that blocked Trump’s earlier attempt to alter the citizenship rule. The judge’s decision underscores ongoing legal disputes over the administration’s efforts to reinterpret the jurisdiction clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.