A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from enforcing its latest attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, ruling that the White House cannot deny citizenship to a class of children whom the Supreme Court has already determined are Americans at birth. In a sharply worded opinion, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, an appointee of President Joe Biden, said the administration's new executive order conflicts with a recent Supreme Court decision that said that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present in the country are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause.
"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." Boardman granted a preliminary injunction against key portions of the order.
The ruling means federal agencies, including the State Department, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Social Security Administration (SSA), cannot apply the new policy to the group of children covered by the lawsuit while the case proceeds. "When I joined this lawsuit, I was two months pregnant and terrified that the government would refuse to recognize my baby as a citizen simply because we are an immigrant family," Juana, a We Are CASA member and class representative on the case, said in a press release. "I am grateful that we came together and that the courts continue to uphold our children’s rights.
Today’s decision gives me relief because my child and thousands of other children remain protected. I will continue to raise my voice with other immigrant families to show that we have the power to defeat these attacks." Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment Wednesday evening. The decision is the latest chapter in a long-running legal fight over Trump's efforts to narrow birthright citizenship through executive action.
Although the administration argued its new 2026 order targeted specific categories of children it believes fall outside constitutional protections, Boardman concluded that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing the policy is unconstitutional as applied to the certified class. She said the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Trump v. Barbara already established that those children are citizens under the Constitution, leaving the administration little room to reach a different result through a new executive order.
The injunction does not strike down the entire executive order nationwide, nor does it prevent the administration from developing implementation guidance. But it preserves the status quo for the class of children covered by the lawsuit and sets up what is likely to be another appeal in a legal battle that could ultimately return to the Supreme Court. This is a breaking news story.
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