A U.S. federal judge has blocked a new attempt by President Donald Trump’s administration to limit birthright citizenship and has proceeded to partially nullify an executive order issued by the White House occupant in response to the Supreme Court’s overturning of a decree on the same matter.
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Judge Deborah Boardman has indicated that the administration cannot issue a new restrictive order on the matter, but has left open the possibility for agencies to continue working on guidelines for its implementation.
Furthermore, she noted that there were indications that this new policy was unconstitutional, according to the previous Supreme Court ruling, according to reports from the U.S. television network CNN.
At the end of June, the Supreme Court ruled that there was “little evidence” supporting the reinterpretation that the Trump administration made of a rule—the Fourteenth Amendment—that stipulates that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens of the United States.”
With his directive, Trump sought to deny U.S. citizenship to minors born to mothers who are in the country illegally or with temporary visas, and whose parents are neither citizens nor legal residents, which, if carried out, could affect about 250,000 babies born in the country each year, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and the Population Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania.
The highest court of justice in the United States has repeatedly upheld the right to birthright citizenship, while Congress also passed—ahead of the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868—a federal law granting this right to those born on U.S. soil.
Trump has made restricting birthright citizenship a hallmark of his second term. Immediately after returning to office last year, the president issued the executive order, with which he sought to deny citizenship to such minors.
