A US federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing its latest executive order seeking to restrict birthright citizenship, ruling that the measure is almost certainly unconstitutional as applied to a class of children.
US District Judge Deborah Boardman, sitting in Maryland, issued a preliminary injunction on Wednesday, 2 September, preventing federal agencies from denying or failing to recognise the citizenship of children covered by the case.
The ruling applies to a certified class including children born in the United States after 19 February 2025 whose mothers were unlawfully present and whose fathers were neither US citizens nor lawful permanent residents.
Judge Boardman said the Supreme Court had already determined that children in the class were citizens at birth. She described the latest executive order as President Donald Trump’s “most recent attempt to strip the right to citizenship from them”.
“The 2026 Executive Order is almost certainly unconstitutional as applied to the certified class,” she wrote, adding that the Supreme Court had already decided that those children were citizens under the 14th Amendment.
The amendment states that all people born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, are US citizens. The administration has argued that the provision allows limited exceptions, including for children of foreign diplomats and so-called alien enemies.
Mr Trump signed the new order on 6 August, shortly after the Supreme Court rejected his broader attempt to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants and temporary residents.
The latest measure targeted children whose parents were classified as “alien enemies”, including members of designated terrorist organisations, as well as children of foreign government employees. It also sought to deny citizenship where a parent had engaged in a commercial transaction to arrange for a mother to give birth in the United States, a practice the administration calls “birth tourism”.
Government lawyers argued that the Supreme Court’s ruling did not mean every child born to temporary or undocumented immigrants was automatically a citizen without exception. They said the court had left room for historically recognised exclusions.
The plaintiffs, including immigrant advocacy organisations CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, said the order unlawfully attempted to expand those narrow exceptions. They warned that families could be denied citizenship on the basis of allegations against a parent, including disputed claims of links to criminal or terrorist groups.
Judge Boardman’s injunction bars the administration from applying the order to members of the certified class or taking steps to interfere with their citizenship. It does not prevent agencies from issuing guidance on how the order would be implemented, and does not halt a separate provision concerning births in US territories.
The White House has been approached for a response. The case is expected to continue through further legal proceedings, with the administration able to seek changes to or the removal of the injunction.
