GREENBELT, Maryland (AP) — A federal judge in Maryland ruled Thursday that the Trump administration cannot deny citizenship to children born to people who are in the United States temporarily or without lawful status, issuing the fourth nationwide injunction blocking the president’s birthright citizenship order since the U.S. Supreme Court issued a key ruling in June.
It had been expected that District Judge Deborah Boardman would issue that preliminary injunction after she said in July she would grant such an order if an appellate court sent the case back to her. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit later sent the case back to her in the same month.
Since June, two other district courts, as well as a panel of appellate judges, have also blocked the birthright citizenship order nationwide.
An email to the White House requesting comment had not yet been answered.
The order issued by Trump in January would deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily.
In February, Boardman issued a preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s order nationwide. But the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling overturned that decision and other court orders blocking the order nationwide.
The judges ruled that, in general, lower courts cannot issue nationwide injunctions, but they did not rule out other orders that could have nationwide effects, including class actions and those brought by states.
In her Thursday ruling, Boardman held that all children who have been born or will be born in the United States after February 19, 2025 — the ones who would be affected by Trump’s order — may file a class-action suit.
She noted that it was “extremely likely” that the plaintiffs would win their argument that the birthright citizenship order violates the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which contains a citizenship clause stating that all people born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to U.S. jurisdiction, are citizens. It was also likely that they would suffer irreparable harm if the order went into effect, she wrote.
