Search Articles
WASHINGTON (CN) — Pregnant mothers and immigrant rights groups won a temporary reprieve from President Donald Trump’s unilateral push to revoke citizenship from noncitizens’ children on Wednesday after a federal judge ordered a nationwide pause on an executive order ending birthright citizenship.
“The Executive Order has created chaos for so many families, including ASAP members, who are scared their children will not be able to live a life free of fear in the only country they will have ever known,” Swapna Reddy, the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project’s co-executive director, said in a statement following the hearing.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman rejected the Trump administration’s outlier interpretation of the 14th Amendment. Ruling from the bench, Boardman said removing citizenship rights for anyone born in the U.S. to someone in the country illegally was likely unconstitutional.
“Citizenship is a most precious right, expressly granted by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution,” Boardman said during a federal court hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Five pregnant women sued the Trump administration fearing their children would be denied U.S. citizenship. Immigrant rights groups representing the women said Trump’s order was unconstitutional and would throw into doubt the citizenship status of thousands of children across the country.
Reddy said Boardman made the right decision to block the order temporarily.
“The principle of birthright citizenship is a foundation of our national democracy, is woven throughout the laws of our nation, and has shaped a shared sense of national belonging for generation after generation of citizens,” immigrant advocates wrote in the suit.
A Washington judge issued a temporary restraining order in a separate lawsuit in January, calling the revocation of birthright citizenship “blatantly unconstitutional.” Boardman said a nationwide injunction was needed because citizenship is a “national concern that demands a uniform policy.”
Birthright citizenship was enshrined in the Constitution after the Civil War to repudiate Dred Scott . The 14th Amendment declared that “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 Trump administration adopted a novel reading of the amendment, arguing that noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Justice Department lawyers cited Supreme Court precedent on tribal citizenship to support Trump’s claim.
“Text, history, and precedent support what common sense compels: the Constitution does not harbor a windfall clause granting American citizenship to, inter alia: the children of those who have circumvented (or outright defied) federal immigration laws,” the government wrote.
Immigrant rights groups and pregnant women cited multiple Supreme Court rulings supporting citizenship rights of children regardless of their parents’ citizenship status. The only exceptions, according to immigrant advocates, are foreign sovereigns, enemies during a hostile occupation or children of members of Indigenous tribes with direct allegiance to their tribes.
“Regardless of the immigration status of their parents, children born in the United States are undoubtedly ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States’ at the moment of their birth,” the advocates wrote. “Both federal and state governments today extend to children born in the United States — as well as their parents while physically present in the United States — the equal protection of the laws and assert regulatory authority over them.”
A multi-state coalition filed a separate challenge to Trump’s order in Massachusetts. The District of Columbia, the city and county of San Francisco and 18 states call ending birthright citizenship “a flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands [of] American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage.”
The Trump administration has not indicated whether it will appeal to the Fourth Circuit to block the injunction.
Follow @KelseyReichmann
Follow @kelseyreichmann.bsky.socialSubscribe to our free newsletters
Our weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.