A federal judge has indefinitely blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship in the United States, blocking the order from going into effect later this month.
Judge Deborah Boardman, who is overseeing a suit brought by civil rights organizations against the Trump administration in the District of Maryland, issued a national injunction, putting Trump’s order on hold indefinitely while the case is litigated.
The case in Maryland is one of at least six different suits filed against Trump’s order percolating through the court system. In another case, in the Western District of Washington, Judge John Coughenour is set to consider a preliminary injunction on Thursday.
Coughenour had already issued a temporary pause on the order in January (Trump's order was originally supposed to go into effect on Feb. 19). Administration lawyers had argued that, because the order had not yet gone into effect, Boardman did not need to issue an injunction. However, the court rejected this argument.
"Today, virtually every baby born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen upon birth," Boardman wrote in her ruling. “That is the law and tradition of our country. That law and tradition are and will remain the status quo pending the resolution of this case. In fact, no court in the country has ever endorsed the president's interpretation.”
In the case, two civil rights groups, CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, are arguing that Trump’s executive order, which would deny citizenship to the children of immigrants who do not themselves have citizenship, violates the 14th Amendment. That amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The two organizations are joined by five pregnant women in challenging the executive order, with the women contesting the order based on concerns about the citizenship status of their children.
In the various cases challenging the executive order, the Trump administration argues that the 14th Amendment has been misinterpreted since 1898, when the Supreme Court decided in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that children born to immigrant parents do maintain their birthright citizenship status, with only a few exceptions like in the case of the children of diplomats.
While Trump’s order has been put on hold, a victory for the Trump administration would have serious material consequences for hundreds of thousands of children born every year and their families.
Reuters reported that some 150,000 newborn children would be denied citizenship by Trump’s order annually; for many of these families, the citizenship of their children is integral to their well-being. In one of the cases challenging the order, local governments filed a brief highlighting how newborn children would be denied nutritional and health insurance benefits, likely forcing local institutions to fill the gap left by the federal government and creating an environment of “fear and hunger.”
