By Blake Brittain and Nate Raymond
GREENBELT, Maryland, Aug 28 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday declined to immediately block U.S. President Donald Trump’s newest executive order limiting the number of people eligible for birthright citizenship, even as she sharply questioned its viability after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his previous effort to do so.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland, rejected a request for a temporary restraining order sought by immigrant rights advocates who had last year secured a ruling from her blocking the Trump administration from enforcing his initial 2025 executive order curtailing birthright citizenship.
Boardman, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, said because the plaintiffs’ lawsuit did not even mention Trump’s 2026 order, she was unable to block it from being implemented at this time.
But she said she would allow the groups to supplement their complaint and set a swift briefing schedule for the plaintiffs to once again challenge the order, which “tries to strike out exceptions to birthright citizenship with the stroke of a pen.”
“As far as I can tell, this is unprecedented,” Boardman said.
The U.S. Supreme Court on June 30 rejected Trump’s initial effort to end birthright citizenship for children whose parents were not American citizens or legal permanent residents, known as green card holders, finding it violated the citizenship clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
Following that decision, Trump signed a new order on August 6 that took particular aim at “birth tourism,” in which women travel to the United States to give birth so their children can obtain automatic citizenship.
Citizenship would also be denied to children whose parents work for foreign governments in the United States, engage in fraud to obtain citizenship, or are classified as “alien enemies.”
After he signed that order, lawyers pursuing a class-action lawsuit on behalf of babies who would be deprived of citizenship under Trump’s 2025 order asked Boardman to block enforcement of the Republican president’s newest order and ensure their clients’ citizenship continued to be honored.
U.S. Department of Justice attorneys opposed, noting federal agencies had yet to issue the necessary public guidance detailing how the president’s directive would be implemented, which they are expected to do by September 5.
But Boardman at Friday’s hearing expressed skepticism about waiting until then to consider the matter, as she questioned where in the Supreme Court’s ruling “is there any reference to an exception for birthright citizenship for birth tourism?”
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Greenbelt, Maryland and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama )
