A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a new executive order that sought to further restrict birthright citizenship in the United States.
US District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland, issued a preliminary injunction after immigrant rights advocates challenged President Donald Trump’s latest order.
The same groups had earlier secured a ruling blocking Trump’s 2025 executive order that attempted to deny automatic citizenship to certain children born in the US.
The US Supreme Court on June 30 rejected that earlier effort, ruling that it violated the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The clause grants citizenship to people born in the United States who are “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
Following the Supreme Court ruling, Trump signed a new executive order on August 6, this time focusing more narrowly on what the administration describes as “birth tourism.”
Under the new order, citizenship could be denied in certain cases involving children born to parents who travelled to the US primarily to give birth so that their child could obtain automatic citizenship.
The order also sought to deny citizenship in cases where a parent works for a foreign government in the US, is accused of fraud or a commercial arrangement connected to obtaining citizenship, or is classified as an “alien enemy.”
Lawyers representing children who could be affected by the policy asked Judge Boardman to block the latest order and ensure that their citizenship rights continued to be recognised.
The plaintiffs include immigrant rights groups CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, which had also challenged Trump’s earlier order.
Boardman, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, initially declined to immediately block the new order during a hearing on Friday. However, she expressed concerns about the policy and allowed the plaintiffs to amend their lawsuit.
She later issued the preliminary injunction, preventing the administration from enforcing the order for now.
Justice Department lawyers argued that the new executive order was narrower than Trump’s earlier policy and said an injunction was unnecessary.
They also argued that the lawsuit was premature because federal agencies had not yet issued detailed guidance on how the order would be implemented. That guidance is expected by September 5.
For now, the court’s ruling represents another legal setback for the Trump administration in its continuing effort to restrict birthright citizenship.
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