A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to limit birthright citizenship, calling the executive order he signed last month “almost certainly unconstitutional.”
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The order targets what Trump calls “birth tourism” — when someone travels to the U.S. on a “nonimmigrant visa for the purpose of giving birth on American soil.” It also seeks to deny automatic citizenship to some children of people the government deems “alien enemies,” as well as children of foreign government employees.
The ruling
In her 35-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, a Biden appointee, pointed to the Supreme Court’s June decision striking down Trump’s earlier attempt to restrict birthright citizenship. Boardman called that decision “the law of the land.”
Government lawyers argued the Supreme Court’s ruling does not prevent the administration from creating narrower exceptions to birthright citizenship.
In a court filing, Justice Department lawyers said the Supreme Court only ruled that children of temporary or undocumented immigrants “are not disqualified from birthright citizenship,” but “never suggested that every child born to such parents is per se a citizen, with no exceptions.”
It’s not yet clear if the administration will appeal, but Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News on Wednesday the decision was “not something that is a surprise to us.”
Why Boardman initially declined
Boardman denied a request for an injunction from the nonprofit CASA Inc. last week, but said that was only because the original complaint cited Trump’s 2025 order, which had already been struck down by the Supreme Court, rather than the more recent order.
“This is different,” Boardman noted on Friday. “This is unprecedented.”
At the time, she indicated she would rule in favor of CASA Inc. once the complaint was updated. Boardman also accused Trump of “trying to rewrite the carve-outs to birthright citizenship with the stroke of a pen.”
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