A federal judge in Maryland blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship Wednesday, finding the effort likely violated the Constitution and federal law.
Judge Deborah L. Boardman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland issued the preliminary injunction from the bench after a hearing in one of several legal challenges to Trump’s order.
Boardman, an appointee of President Joe Biden, ruled in favor of nonprofit groups and anonymous expectant parents who argued that countless children across the country would be denied citizenship if Trump’s order were allowed to take effect.
Boardman’s ruling is one of the most significant so far in dozens of lawsuits seeking to counter Trump’s fast-moving effort to remake the federal government, in part because it will remain in place indefinitely unless another court intervenes.
Trump’s executive order, which he unveiled on his first day in office, would have had the federal government stop recognizing citizenship of children born of undocumented parents or those who have temporary legal status starting on Feb. 9.
“The executive order conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment, contradicts 125-year-old binding Supreme Court precedent and runs counter to our nation’s 250-year history of citizenship by birth,” Boardman said.
Numerous times during the hearing, Boardman questioned what she called the Justice Department’s “novel” interpretation of the Constitution and Supreme Court cases to require that a person be born to parents who were “domiciled” in the United States or bore “allegiance” to the country.
“No court in the country has ever endorsed the president’s interpretation. This court will not be the first,” Boardman said.
Last week, another federal court temporarily blocked the order, but only until a hearing later this week. The Trump administration is set to defend the birthright citizenship order three times in other cases in the next week.
Joseph Mead, the attorney for the nonprofits challenging the order, argued Wednesday that Trump’s effort was inconsistent with hundreds of years of history and put the citizenship status of countless Americans in flux.
Mead said that upsetting centuries of established practice would make the whole system more complicated, where right now there are “hundreds of millions of people being able to establish U.S. citizenship merely by showing a birth certificate.”
The Trump administration has defended the order, including in Wednesday’s hearing, by arguing that the president has the authority to define who is a citizen of the United States.
Eric Hamilton, arguing for the Justice Department, said the provision in the 14th Amendment that requires people to be born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States allows the president to define citizenship differently.
Hamilton argued that Congress meant to restrict citizenship to people who were born to parents “domiciled” in the United States or otherwise owed allegiance to the country, and “did not intend to and did not create a loophole” when they ratified the 14th Amendment.
“The visits of immigrants here temporarily are short or of a limited nature and illegal aliens are not allowed to be in the United States in the first place,” Hamilton said.
Support from GOP lawmakers
Republicans who control both chambers of Congress have so far said they have no intention of challenging Trump’s wide-ranging changes to the government, including the birthright citizenship order, pausing congressionally mandated spending and other efforts.
Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Katie Britt, R-Ala., introduced legislation to codify citizenship restrictions similar to Trump’s executive order last week, arguing that birthright citizenship has been a “magnet” for birth tourism. Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, introduced a similar bill of his own at an event last month, and argued his measure would correct “decades of misuse” by closing a “loophole” in current law.
Graham and other Republicans have introduced similar legislation in prior sessions of Congress, but they have not passed.
A group of House Republicans eager to support Trump’s efforts have also stepped into court, filing amicus briefs in support of Trump’s birthright citizenship order in two of the cases. In the briefs, 18 members of the House Judiciary panel argued that Congress never granted citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants.
The lawmaker briefs argue that because Congress has not explicitly granted citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants, Trump has the authority to deny recognition to them.
“Merely being born in the United States and being subject to its laws was insufficient. If the parents or child had divided allegiances, the child would not be a U.S. citizen under the Jurisdiction Clause,” the briefs state.
The House Republican briefs did not discuss the portion of Trump’s order that would deny citizenship to children born to parents with temporary legal status.
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