Federal Judge Questions Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order, Declines Immediate Block

POLICY WIRE — Greenbelt, Maryland — A federal judge on Friday declined to immediately halt U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest executive order aimed at limiting birthright citizenship, despite expressing significant doubts about its legal foundation.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Maryland rejected a request from immigrant-rights advocates to block the order. However, she questioned whether the president has the authority to create new exceptions to birthright citizenship following a recent Supreme Court decision.

Trump’s new order, issued earlier this month, seeks to narrow the scope of birthright citizenship, which currently guarantees automatic citizenship to nearly all babies born in the U.S. This move follows a previous attempt by Trump to end the right, which was struck down by the Supreme Court.

Civil rights groups, including the ACLU, have challenged the new order, arguing that it goes beyond the limited exception for foreign diplomats to birthright citizenship that the Supreme Court upheld in its June 30 decision in Trump v. Barbara.

The Supreme Court previously ruled that Trump’s original executive order, issued at the start of his second term last year, violated the U.S. Constitution’s 14th amendment.

Reporting by Policy-Wire (PW)