Trump’s citizenship order blocked before it could bite
A Maryland judge has paused enforcement of the US president’s narrower second attempt to restrict birthright citizenship. Indian families may be watching, but no Telangana impact estimate exists.
A Maryland judge has preliminarily blocked enforcement of the latest birthright-citizenship order.
A US federal judge has blocked enforcement of President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, giving his administration a second legal obstacle in a year. The order matters to Indian families in the United States, including those on temporary visas, though no source quantifies the number of Telangana or Indian families affected.
US District Judge Deborah L. Boardman issued a preliminary injunction on September 2 against Executive Order 14418, signed by Trump on August 6. The order sought to stop federal agencies from issuing citizenship documents to some children born in the US when neither parent is a citizen, including cases involving designated “alien enemies”, foreign-government employees and alleged commercial arrangements connected to childbirth or surrogacy. The White House presents that as an interpretation of the Citizenship Clause; the judge has, for now, treated it as a constitutional problem.
Boardman wrote that “the Supreme Court has spoken: Children in the certified class are ‘citizens at birth.’” The Supreme Court had already rejected Trump’s broader 2025 order in Trump v. Barbara. The latest injunction is preliminary, so the litigation continues. Trump’s second attempt has reached the same old American institution: a court reading the Constitution before the executive order does.