Again, US Judge Blocks Trump’s Order Restricting Birthright Citizenship

A US federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s latest bid to restrict birthright citizenship. 

In June, the US supreme court struck down Trump’s executive order seeking to limit birthright citizenship — a policy he introduced on his first day in office.

In a 6-3 ruling, the court held that the US constitution guarantees citizenship at birth to children born in the country, including those whose parents are undocumented immigrants or are residing in the US on a temporary basis.

But last month, Trump signed two new executive orders to scale back American birthright citizenship.

Trump’s new orders deny automatic citizenship not only to illegal migrants but to children of international legal workers, including employees at a foreign embassy and employees of international organisations such as the United Nations and the World Bank.

The new order also denies birthright citizenship to children of parents the government deemed “alien enemies” and parents who engaged in “birth tourism” — the practice of pregnant women travelling to the US on non-immigrant visas to give birth so their children can obtain US citizenship.

Though the US has yet to issue guidelines on how those restrictions would work in practice, the State Department proposed that all parents or legal guardians provide proof of citizenship, such as a valid US passport or birth certificate, or evidence of their immigration status, such as an I-94 form or a legal permanent residency card, when submitting a passport application for their children.

Immigrants and lawyers subsequently challenged the executive order in court.

Issuing a preliminary injunction on Wednesday, Deborah Boardman, a US district judge, said the new executive orders were likely an infringement of the constitutional right to automatic citizenship granted to people born in the country.

Boardman said the directive “is almost certainly unconstitutional” and would remain so until the lawsuit brought by immigrant advocacy groups is settled.

“This court must, once again, preliminarily enjoin enforcement of the president’s most recent attempt to strip the right to citizenship from them,” she said.

The Trump administration is likely to appeal the ruling.

In February 2025, Boardman blocked a similar executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship in the US.