BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from ending birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are in the United States illegally, delivering the third court ruling to halt the birthright order nationwide since a key Supreme Court decision in June.
U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, joining another district court and an appellate panel of judges, held that the nationwide injunction granted to more than a dozen states remains in force under an exception to the Supreme Court ruling that restricted the power of lower-court judges to issue nationwide injunctions. The decision comes as the administration faces renewed scrutiny over its interpretation of who qualifies for citizenship by birth.
The states contend that the birthright citizenship order is plainly unconstitutional and threatens millions of dollars in funding for health insurance programs and other services tied to citizenship status. The dispute is expected to move quickly back to the Supreme Court.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement that the administration looks forward to “being vindicated on appeal.”
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who helped steer the suit before Sorokin, praised the ruling, saying he was “thrilled the district court again barred President Trump’s flagrantly unconstitutional birthright citizenship order from taking effect anywhere.” He added, “American-born babies are American, just as they have been at every other time in our Nation’s history. The President cannot change that legal rule with the stroke of a pen.”
Lawyers for the government had urged Sorokin to narrow the reach of his earlier preliminary injunction, arguing it should be “tailored to the States’ purported financial injuries.”
Sorokin rejected the idea of a piecemeal approach to blocking the order, saying a patchwork method would not adequately protect the states, in part because many people relocate across state lines. He also criticized the Trump administration for failing to explain how a narrower injunction would operate in practice.
“That is, they have never addressed what renders a proposal feasible or workable, how the defendant agencies might implement it without imposing material administrative or financial burdens on the plaintiffs, or how it squares with other relevant federal statutes,” the judge wrote. “In fact, they have characterized such questions as irrelevant to the task the Court is now undertaking. The defendants’ position in this regard defies both law and logic.”
Sorokin acknowledged that his ruling would not be the final word on birthright citizenship. He noted that Trump and his administration “are entitled to pursue their interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and no doubt the Supreme Court will ultimately settle the question,” but added that, for purposes of the current lawsuit, the Executive Order is unconstitutional.
The administration has not yet appealed any of the recent court rulings. Trump’s efforts to deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily will remain blocked unless and until the Supreme Court says otherwise.
A federal judge in New Hampshire issued a ruling earlier this month prohibiting the president’s executive order from taking effect nationwide in a new class-action lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante in New Hampshire had paused his own decision to allow for the Trump administration to appeal, but with no appeal filed, his order went into effect.
On Wednesday, a San Francisco-based appellate court found the president’s executive order unconstitutional and affirmed a lower court’s nationwide block.
A Maryland-based judge said last week that she would do the same if an federal appeals court signed off on the decision.
The Supreme Court’s ruling last month clarified that lower courts generally cannot issue nationwide injunctions, but it did not foreclose other court orders that could have nationwide effects, including in class-action lawsuits and those brought by states. The Court did not decide whether the underlying citizenship order is constitutional.
Plaintiffs in the Boston case had argued that birthright citizenship is “enshrined in the Constitution,” and that Trump lacks the authority to issue the order, which they termed a “flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands of American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage.”
They also argued that Trump’s order halting automatic citizenship for babies born to people in the U.S. illegally or temporarily would deprive states of funding they rely on to provide essential services—from foster care to health care for low-income children, to early interventions for infants, toddlers, and students with disabilities.
At the heart of the lawsuits is the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, which held that Dred Scott, an enslaved man, was not a citizen despite living in a state where slavery was banned.
The Trump administration has contended that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.
“These courts are misinterpreting the purpose and the text of the 14th Amendment,” Jackson said in her statement.
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Associated Press reporter Mark Sherman in Washington contributed.
