President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship has not gone into effect, despite a recent Supreme Court ruling limiting the use of nationwide injunctions. Lower courts have issued new decisions this month preventing the administration from enforcing the policy.
The Supreme Court in June ruled that broad nationwide injunctions should be used only when necessary to provide complete relief to plaintiffs. That decision gave the administration 30 days to potentially begin enforcing the order.
However, according to CNN, several federal judges have since issued rulings against the order, blocking its implementation for now — and possibly permanently.
Federal Courts Continue to Block Enforcement
Reports cite that earlier this month, a federal judge in New Hampshire, Joseph LaPlante, issued a nationwide injunction through a class action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ruling stopped the administration from implementing the executive order, which denies citizenship to children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents.
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The Department of Justice has not appealed LaPlante’s decision.
In another case, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a nationwide injunction issued by a judge in Seattle, finding that the injunction was necessary to provide full relief to the states involved in the lawsuit.
“We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a universal injunction in order to give the states complete relief,” the court stated in its 2-1 decision.
That ruling also found the executive order unconstitutional, which goes beyond the Supreme Court’s June decision that focused only on the legal scope of injunctions, not on the validity of the policy itself.
Additional Rulings Undermine Administration’s Efforts
A third ruling came last week from US District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston. Sorokin declined to narrow his existing nationwide injunction, stating that doing so would not sufficiently protect the plaintiffs, which include over a dozen Democratic-led states, the District of Columbia, and several cities.
Sorokin reaffirmed his position that the order “is unconstitutional and contrary to a federal statute.”
These three rulings have effectively stalled any immediate implementation of Trump’s policy. As of now, no appeals have been filed by the administration in any of these cases.
Legal Basis for Rejection of the Policy
The courts have based their rulings on long-standing interpretations of the 14th Amendment and the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which confirmed that children born on US soil are U.S. citizens regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
Trump’s executive order, signed on January 20th, directs federal agencies not to issue citizenship documents to children born in the U.S. to parents who are in the country unlawfully or temporarily. The order, titled “PROTECTING THE MEANING AND VALUE OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP,” has faced consistent legal opposition in multiple jurisdictions.
Next Steps Remain Unclear
Additional rulings are expected. Judge Deborah Boardman, a federal judge in Maryland, has said she is prepared to reissue a nationwide injunction if the case before her, now refiled as a class action, is returned to her court by a Virginia-based appeals panel.
Meanwhile, the administration has not provided detailed guidance on how the order would be implemented, despite being permitted by the Supreme Court to do so.
“The agencies are right now working on public guidance to explain how the President’s executive order is going to be implemented,” DOJ attorney Eric Hamilton said during a court hearing earlier this month. However, no official policy documents have been released.
With every federal court ruling so far finding the executive order unconstitutional, and more litigation expected, the future of the birthright citizenship policy remains uncertain.
