Second judge blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship order

A federal judge in Maryland on Wednesday became the second one nationally to block Donald Trump’s administration from implementing the Republican president’s executive order aimed at curtailing birthright citizenship in the United States.

US District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt sided with two immigrant rights groups and five pregnant women who argued that their children were at risk of being unconstitutionally denied U.S. citizenship based on their parents’ immigration status.

The judge, an appointee of Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, issued a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s order from going into effect nationwide as planned on Feb. 19.

“Today, virtually every baby born on US soil is a US citizen upon birth,” Boardman said. “That is the law and tradition of our country. That law and tradition are and will remain the status quo pending the resolution of this case.”

Boardman’s order provided longer-term relief to opponents of Trump’s policy than an earlier, 14-day pause imposed on Jan. 23 by a Seattle-based federal judge.

That judge, John Coughenour, called Trump’s order “blatantly unconstitutional.” Coughenour is set on Thursday to consider whether to likewise issue a preliminary injunction that would remain in effect pending the resolution of the litigation.

Trump’s executive order, signed on his first day back in office on Jan.20, had directed US agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of children born in the United States if neither their mother nor father is a US citizen or lawful permanent resident.

Lawyers for the immigrant rights groups CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project argued that Trump’s order violated the right enshrined in the citizenship clause of the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment that provides that anyone born in the United States is a citizen.

Their lawsuit is one of at least eight filed around the United States by Democratic state attorneys general, immigrants rights advocates and expectant mothers challenging Trump’s order.