Federal judge in Maryland blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship order

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Software developer Sundari Narayanan, poses with President Trump holding her Citizenship certificate at the White House following a Naturalization ceremony Aug. 26, 2020. (Photo: videograb from White House video of ceremony)

A federal judge Tuesday indefinitely blocked President Donald Trump’s effort to curb birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and foreigners with temporary visas, a decision that is likely to mean the executive order will not take effect as planned this month.

U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman issued a preliminary injunction after a court hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a lawsuit brought by civil rights groups aiming to stop Trump’s order on the grounds that it violates the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.

The injunction applies nationally and will remain in place as the case is adjudicated. The Maryland lawsuit is one of at least six federal cases brought against Trump’s order by a total of 22 Democratic-led states and more than a half-dozen civil rights groups. A federal judge in Seattle previously issued a 14-day restraining order.

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In issuing the injunction, Boardman said the plaintiffs would “very likely” succeed on the merits in their case against Trump’s order, which she said “conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment.”

Boardman said Supreme Court precedent protects birthright citizenship.

“No court in the country has ever endorsed the president’s interpretation,” she said. “This court will not be the first.”

The Trump administration is expected to appeal Broadman’s injunction, according to legal experts.

At a rally after the court hearing, several dozen immigrants gathered at the Langley Park, Maryland, office of CASA, one of two nonprofit groups that filed the lawsuit on behalf of five pregnant women whose children would be denied citizenship under Trump’s order. “The people united will never be defeated!” they chanted.

George Escobar, CASA’s chief of programs and services, called the court outcome an “extraordinary day when we fight back against Trump.” He said the group had “accomplished an extraordinary victory today for their families, for the community and for the Constitution of the United States.”

Trump’s order directs federal agencies, including the State Department and Social Security Administration, not to issue citizenship documents to children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants and foreigners on temporary work, student and tourist visas. Federal agencies also would be barred from accepting citizenship documents issued by states for children who do not qualify under the order. Some studies project that more than 150,000 people a year would fall into that category.

White House officials said the order was scheduled to take effect Feb. 19. Only children born after the directive is in place would be denied citizenship, the officials said.

The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, provides automatic citizenship to those born on U.S. soil who are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the federal government, which has traditionally applied to nearly everyone other than the children of foreign diplomats.

White House aides said Trump’s order seeks to reinterpret the amendment because, they argue, immigrants in the country illegally and foreigners on temporary visas are not fully under the jurisdiction of the United States. Therefore, their children should not be granted citizenship, the aides contend.

Most legal scholars reject such reasoning because immigrants and foreign visitors are subject to U.S. laws and can be arrested, jailed or deported.

In their complaint, the advocates for the pregnant women, whose identities are not being disclosed in the court proceedings, said Trump’s order is unconstitutional and would have the practical effect of denying their children their rights and thrust families like theirs into chaos.

Trump’s order is “causing real-world confusion, fear, real-world harm, for countless people today,” Joseph Mead, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told Boardman at the hearing. “This executive order is such a departure from settled law. It’s so abrupt and such a departure from what we’ve been doing for over a century.”

He added: “People covered by the executive order are parents, people who have lived here for years and decades, and are not temporary visitors. They are people we work with, who own the houses down the street, who made America their home. They are entitled to have their children have the same constitutional right to citizenship as every other child born in the United States has.”

Justice Department attorney Eric Hamilton told Boardman that the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment has been misinterpreted and is being used as a loophole exploited by unauthorized immigrants and foreign visitors.

Boardman appeared to side with the plaintiffs that court precedent has settled the question of birthright citizenship. She pointed repeatedly to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the 1898 case of Wong Kim Ark. Wong was born in San Francisco and had been denied reentry to the United States after a trip abroad because his parents were Chinese nationals living in the country. The court ruled he was a citizen.

In a statement after Boardman’s ruling, one of the pregnant plaintiffs, identified by the pseudonym Trinidad, said: “All I have wanted is to focus on my baby being born healthy and safe, but instead, even though my baby will be born in the U.S., I have been worried that they will be denied a right that is guaranteed under the Constitution – the right to be a U.S. citizen. This ruling will give mothers like me a bit of temporary relief as we navigate pregnancy and the uncertain future for our babies.”

Boardman was appointed to the federal bench by President Joe Biden in 2021.

The judge’s ruling came nearly two weeks after a federal judge in Seattle, overseeing another case, called Trump’s order “blatantly unconstitutional.” Another hearing in that case, brought by a coalition of four states, is scheduled for Thursday.