Federal judge blocks Trump's revised birthright citizenship order, White House calls ruling 'activist'

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman issued a 35-page preliminary injunction against President Trump's August 6 executive order, which sought to restrict birthright citizenship for children born to parents deemed alien enemies — including members of designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations — and children whose foreign parents paid a surrogate in the United States to give birth.

In her ruling, Boardman wrote that the executive order is "almost certainly unconstitutional as applied to the certified class for the simple reason that the Supreme Court in Barbara already decided that the children in the class are citizens at birth." She cited concerns about the Trump administration's "broad view of who qualifies as an enemy," pointing to two plaintiffs: Andrea, who fled a region of Mexico where a designated cartel operates and whose child's father has a relative in the group, and Monica, a Venezuelan woman who feared her family could be wrongly linked to the gang Tren de Aragua.

The White House issued a statement characterizing the ruling as the work of an "activist judge appointed by Biden attempting to thwart President Trump's commonsense agenda." White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis stated that "the birthright citizenship executive order is consistent with the holdings and analysis set forth by the Supreme Court." Boardman had also blocked Trump's original birthright citizenship executive order before the Supreme Court weighed in.