US judge blocks Trump’s fresh bid to curb birthright citizenship: 'Children covered by earlier SC ruling remain US citizens at birth'

A US district judge in Maryland has blocked President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, saying the executive order (EO) cannot be enforced against children whose citizenship rights have already been recognised by the Supreme Court (SC) earlier.Judge Deborah L. Boardman on Wednesday issued a preliminary injunction against the EO issued by Trump in August. This EO sought to deny citizenship to certain US-born children based on the immigration status or activities of their parents.In her order, Judge Boardman pointed out that the Supreme Court had already settled the constitutional issue in its June ruling on Trump’s earlier attempt to restrict birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court had held that children born in the US to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are “citizens at birth.”Trump had issued his earlier EO seeking to restrict birthright citizenship on Jan 20, 2025, shortly after returning to the White House. The Supreme Court’s June ruling effectively invalidated that EO as unconstitutional.Judge Boardman’s order relates to a class-action case brought by CASA Inc and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project and individual plaintiffs, “The Supreme Court has spoken: Children in the certified class are ‘citizens at birth,’” Judge Boardman stated. “Trump v/s Barbara (the SC order) is the law of the land. The President must follow it,” the order added.Trump’s EO issued last month, in August , had sought to create several categories in which federal agencies would not bestow citizenship to US-born children. These included cases where a parent was designated an ‘alien enemy’, worked for a foreign government or international organisation, or had engaged in a commercial transaction or fraud linked to obtaining birthright citizenship. This executive order was projected as a crackdown on birth-tourism.Judge Boardman, however, said the question before her was narrower than whether every provision of the EO issued in August was unconstitutional. She ruled that applying the executive order to the certified class was “almost certainly unconstitutional” because the Supreme Court had already determined that these children are citizens at birth.The judge also rejected the Trump administration's argument that the case was premature because government agencies had not yet issued detailed guidance on how the order would be implemented. She emphasised that loss of citizenship, even temporarily, could have cascading consequences and that the balance of equities and public interest favoured preventing confusion and upheaval.The ruling is another setback for the Trump administration's effort to narrow birthright citizenship. But immigration attorneys point out that it leaves open the possibility of further litigation over the scope of the executive order issued in August.Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.