US judge blocks Trump’s latest effort to limit birthright citizenship

A United States federal judge in Maryland has blocked President Donald Trump’s latest effort to roll back birthright citizenship, after the Supreme Court ruled that his last attempt violated the Constitution.

District Judge Deborah Boardman issued a preliminary injunction on Wednesday against Trump’s new executive order , which was issued on August 6.

The new order took aim at what Trump has called “birth tourism”, the practice of intentionally giving birth on foreign soil.

It sought to deny citizenship to children of foreign nationals in certain groups, including those accused of engaging in a commercial transaction to obtain citizenship or classified as an “alien enemy”.

Boardman, however, said the order was unconstitutional for the same reason Trump’s previous effort failed. She cited the Supreme Court’s June decision in the case Barbara v Trump.

The order “is almost certainly unconstitutional as applied to the certified class for the simple reason that the Supreme Court in Barbara already decided that the children in the class are citizens at birth”, she wrote.

“This Court must, once again, preliminarily enjoin enforcement of the President’s most recent attempt to strip the right to citizenship from them.”

In the Barbara case, the Supreme Court ruled six to three that birthright citizenship was protected under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.