Federal Judge Blocks Latest Trump Effort to Restrict Birthright Citizenship

Another order, another injunction

A federal judge has blocked the administration's latest attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, continuing a line of district-court rulings that treat the Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause as a constraint the president cannot rewrite by executive order.

Civil-liberties groups, including the ACLU, had asked courts to stop implementation while the constitutional fight proceeds. The government argues it may define who is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Challengers say that question was settled after the Civil War.

How the cases stack

Birthright-citizenship litigation is now one of several simultaneous tests of executive power, alongside mail-ballot rules and appointments to independent agencies. Lower courts have repeatedly paused the citizenship order.

What is not decided yet

No final merits ruling from the high court has closed the file. Until one does, children born on U.S. soil continue to be treated as citizens while the appeals move.