U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman on Wednesday, September 2, 2026, issued a preliminary injunction blocking an executive order from President Trump intended to restrict birthright citizenship. The ruling, issued in Maryland, prohibits the administration from enforcing the citizenship restrictions against any child born after February 19, 2025, to one or more parents who were not lawfully in the United States at the time.
The case was brought by two immigration advocacy groups, CASA, Inc. and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, Inc. They previously secured a nationwide injunction against the administration's initial attempt to limit citizenship eligibility in 2025. This legal challenge followed a June 2026 Supreme Court decision that struck down President Trump’s first executive order on the matter, with five justices affirming that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to nearly all children born on U.S. soil.
In her 35-page opinion, Judge Boardman stated the directive was "almost certainly unconstitutional" as applied to the certified class of plaintiffs. The Justice Department argued the restrictions were narrower than the policy struck down in June and focused on "birth tourism," defined by the administration as traveling to the country primarily to give birth. The administration also sought to exclude children of "alien enemies" or members of foreign terrorist organizations from automatic citizenship.
The ruling affects children born in the U.S. to parents without legal status, as well as those born to foreign government employees and individuals the administration characterizes as visiting for "birth tourism." While the specific number of children impacted by the latest order was not reported, plaintiffs in a related case in Boston estimated the initial policy could affect hundreds of thousands of American-born children. These families would have faced a change in their legal status under the order, which sought to deny automatic citizenship to children born after February 19, 2025.
State governments have argued in related litigation that the loss of birthright citizenship would threaten millions of dollars in federal funding for services including Medicaid, foster care, and early intervention programs for infants and toddlers with disabilities. The states argued that a patchwork of different citizenship rules would impose administrative and financial burdens, given the frequency with which residents move across state lines.
The legal precedent currently rests on the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause, which the Supreme Court affirmed covers children born to parents in the country unlawfully. This Maryland ruling is a recent decision following others; federal judges in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, along with a San Francisco-based appeals court, have also blocked the administration’s efforts. The Justice Department has not yet filed an appeal to these recent rulings.