The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 29, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
A federal judge in Maryland Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump’s second attempt to redefine birthright citizenship.
In a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman barred the Trump administration from carrying out the president’s executive order that would deny citizenship to babies born in the United States to parents deemed part of a designated terrorist organization or to parents who purposefully came to the U.S. to gain citizenship in what critics call “birth tourism.”
The executive order also aimed to deny citizenship to children born to foreign diplomatic staff and children born in U.S. territories where Congress has not passed a law granting citizenship, which is only American Samoa.
In her order, Boardman said this summer’s Supreme Court ruling affirmed the country’s long understanding that babies born on U.S. soil were guaranteed American citizenship.
“The 2026 Executive Order is almost certainly unconstitutional as applied to the certified class for the simple reason that the Supreme Court in Barbara already decided that the children in the class are citizens at birth,” she wrote, referring to the earlier case. “This Court must, once again, preliminarily enjoin enforcement of the President’s most recent attempt to strip the right to citizenship from them.”
The White House did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.