Judge blocks Trump's second attempt to narrow birthright citizenship

A federal judge in Maryland on Wednesday blocked President Trump's second attempt in 19 months to narrow birthright citizenship, ruling that his newest executive order is "almost certainly unconstitutional" because the Supreme Court had already settled the question seven weeks earlier.

U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman granted a preliminary injunction in a 35-page memorandum opinion filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, halting enforcement of Executive Order 14418 against a certified class of children while the underlying lawsuit, CASA, Inc. v. Trump, continues. The order marks the second time in the same case that Boardman has stopped a Trump administration effort to strip automatic citizenship from children born in the United States to noncitizen parents.

The order and the ruling

President Trump signed Executive Order 14418, "Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," on Aug. 6, 2026, according to the text posted by the White House. Paired with a companion order directing the State and Homeland Security departments to deny visas linked to so-called birth tourism, it identifies four categories of children the administration says fall outside birthright citizenship: those with a parent designated an "alien enemy," including members of a Foreign Terrorist Organization or Specially Designated Global Terrorist; those with a parent employed by a foreign government, such as an ambassador or embassy staffer; those born after a parent engaged in a "commercial transaction" to arrange the birth on U.S. soil, including through a surrogate; and those born in a U.S. territory or territorial waters where citizenship is not conferred by federal statute.

Boardman found that framework cannot survive the Supreme Court's June 30 ruling in Trump v. Barbara, which held 6-3 that children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are "citizens at birth" under the Fourteenth Amendment. "The 2026 Executive Order is almost certainly unconstitutional as applied to the certified class," she wrote, "for the simple reason that the Supreme Court in Barbara already decided that the children in the class are citizens at birth." She also declined the government's request to require plaintiffs to post a bond, citing their constitutional claims.

A fight that has run since inauguration day

The case dates to Executive Order 14160, which Trump signed hours after his second inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, proclaiming that children of parents unlawfully or temporarily in the country were not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. CASA, Inc. and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project sued the next day on behalf of pregnant members without permanent status. Boardman blocked that order in February 2025, the Supreme Court stayed the universal reach of her injunction that June while leaving class-wide relief open, and she certified a class and re-enjoined the order in August 2025.

The fight appeared to end on June 30, 2026, when the Supreme Court ruled for the plaintiffs on the merits in Trump v. Barbara. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority that the Citizenship Clause "neatly captures" the common-law rule of jus soli, with only narrow exceptions for children of foreign diplomats and, historically, of occupying enemy forces. In her opinion, Boardman noted that the reprieve lasted barely a month before Trump issued the new order in August, again targeting the Citizenship Clause under different legal labels.

Who the order would reach

The plaintiffs argued the new categories sweep far beyond the diplomatic and wartime exceptions the court actually recognized in Barbara, and that vague terms like "alien enemy" invite error. Their filings say the administration has taken "a broad view of who qualifies as an alien enemy," at times relying on "tenuous markers like tattoos or family affiliations" rather than proof of terrorist affiliation.

One class representative cited in the ruling, identified as Andrea, came to the United States in 2024 from a part of Mexico where La Nueva Familia Michoacana, a cartel designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization, is active; she was assaulted by a cartel member, and the father of her child has a relative in the group. Her son, identified by initials as E.T.P., "faces a credible threat of having either or both of his parents labeled an alien enemy and having his right to citizenship denied," the opinion states, even though Barbara already established that he is a citizen. A second class representative, Monica, raised a similar claim on behalf of her daughter.

"The White House must recognize it will not succeed in stripping children of their right to citizenship, evading binding court decisions or placing the president's anti-immigrant agenda above the Constitution," said Shana Khader, legal director at We Are CASA, one of the plaintiff organizations.

Reaction and what happens next

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling, according to NBC News. Attorney General Todd Blanche, asked about the decision in a Fox News interview, said it "is not something that is a surprise to us," adding that the administration had "crafted the EO around, and in concurrence, and understanding what the Supreme Court said" in Barbara, and that "if we have to go back to the Supreme Court, we will."

That is the likeliest next step. The Justice Department is expected to appeal Boardman's injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which has already reviewed earlier stages of the same case, legal observers noted, setting up the possibility that the dispute reaches the Supreme Court for a second time within a year. Until then, the injunction keeps federal agencies from denying citizenship documents to children in the certified class under the four categories laid out in the August order. The underlying order also directed agency heads to issue implementing guidance within 30 days of its signing, guidance that the White House has framed as part of a broader push on immigration enforcement, but which Boardman found does not change the order's terms or delay the constitutional question. For now, the practical effect is that the Aug. 6 order cannot be enforced against the families covered by the class while the case continues in Baltimore.