A federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden has blocked President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to narrow birthright citizenship, ruling that the executive order likely violates the Fourteenth Amendment.
Judge Deborah Boardman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction on Thursday, halting enforcement of the president’s order, which sought to exclude U.S.-born children of foreign enemies, members of foreign terrorist organizations, and individuals lobbying on behalf of foreign governments from automatic citizenship.
In her ruling, Boardman — who was nominated by Biden in 2021 — wrote that the executive order is “almost certainly unconstitutional” because the Supreme Court has already decided the matter.
“The Supreme Court has spoken: Children in the certified class are ‘citizens at birth,'” Boardman wrote. “Barbara is the law of the land. The President must follow it. The plaintiffs have established a strong likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the 2026 Executive Order violates the class members’ Fourteenth Amendment right to citizenship.”
The injunction comes months after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Trump v. Barbara, issued in June, which struck down earlier efforts to deny birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign visitors. That ruling affirmed that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to nearly everyone born on U.S. soil.
In the wake of that defeat, President Trump signed a new executive order in August with a narrower scope — this time targeting children of foreign enemies, terrorists, and certain foreign government employees, among others. The move was widely seen as an attempt to test the limits of the Supreme Court’s ruling by finding categories that might fall outside its protections.
But Judge Boardman concluded that the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Barbara already covers the children in question, making the new order unlawful.
The case, CASA v. Trump, was brought by advocacy groups challenging the executive order on behalf of affected families. The court’s decision applies to the certified class of plaintiffs, preventing the administration from enforcing the order while the lawsuit proceeds.
A Recurring Legal Battle
This is not the first time a federal judge has blocked the president’s efforts to restrict birthright citizenship. Courts across the country have repeatedly intervened since Trump first pursued the policy early in his term, citing the plain text of the 14th Amendment and longstanding Supreme Court precedent, particularly the landmark 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which established birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents.
In his dissenting opinion in Trump v. Barbara, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that the 14th Amendment’s phrase “not subject to any foreign power” — part of the definition of a citizen as “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” — should be read to exclude children of foreign temporary visitors, who, he contended, remain under the legal authority of their home nations.
That interpretation, however, did not carry the day. The conservative-majority court’s five-justice majority sided with the administration’s opponents, reaffirming that the Constitution’s promise of citizenship at birth extends broadly to those born on American soil.
What Comes Next
The preliminary injunction is a temporary measure, not a final ruling on the merits. The case will continue in the district court, and the Trump administration is expected to appeal Boardman’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Ultimately, the dispute could return to the Supreme Court, which could clarify the scope of its Barbara decision.
For now, the ruling means that children born in the U.S. to parents who might otherwise fall under the executive order’s exclusions — including foreign nationals employed by foreign governments or linked to designated terrorist organizations — will continue to be treated as citizens at birth, at least until the legal challenge is resolved.
The Biden-appointed judge’s decision underscores the deep judicial divisions over the meaning of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause, a debate that has intensified as Trump and his allies continue to push for stricter immigration policies.
Neither the White House nor the Department of Justice immediately commented on the injunction.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/09/03/biden-appointed-judge-blocks-trump-from-narrowing-birthright-citizenship/