A federal judge partially blocks a Trump executive order limiting birthright citizenship

Or a federal judge on Wednesday marked US President Donald Trump's latest attempt to limit birthright citizenship, partially suspending an executive order the president issued after the Supreme Court last year struck down his broader attempt to end that birthright.

US District Judge Deborah Boardman said the Trump administration could not enforce the new, more restrictive policy, but allowed agencies to continue working on developing guidance on how to implement it.

In the opinion accompanying the preliminary injunction, Boardman wrote that the new policy would likely be unconstitutional under this summer's Supreme Court ruling, which invalidated Trump's previous attempt to end birthright citizenship.

This order applies to the approved class of plaintiffs in the case, which are all children who should have been denied citizenship under the first executive order.

The White House criticized the ruling, calling it "just another ruling from an activist judge appointed by (Joe) Biden, trying to thwart President Trump's common-sense agenda."

“The executive order regarding birthright citizenship is consistent with the rulings and analysis provided by the Supreme Court,” White House spokeswoman Loren Pace said in a statement.

US Attorney General Todd Blanche said, in an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News on Wednesday, that the executive order was drafted taking the Supreme Court's decision into account.

"We were not expecting this judge to acknowledge the validity of our position, so this decision did not surprise us," Blanche added, later adding: "If we had to go back to the Supreme Court, we would do so."

The most recent executive action was intended to tighten existing laws and narrow the scope of recognized exceptions to birthright citizenship, the principle enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, which grants citizenship to anyone born on US soil, regardless of their parents' immigration status.

Trump's most recent order, issued in August, states that federal agencies will not recognize the citizenship of children whose parents do not hold US citizenship if one of the parents is an “enemy alien,” an “employee of a foreign government,” or engages in so-called “birth tourism.”

“If this category is not blocked by the 2026 Executive Order, the children may be denied their right to birthright citizenship, even though the Supreme Court has recognized that they are citizens,” Judge Boardman, a Biden appointee, wrote.

A second case is currently being considered in the US state of New Hampshire to challenge this new policy.

Trump has made limiting birthright citizenship one of the most prominent goals of his second presidential term. Upon his return to office last year, the president issued an executive order that sought to deprive children of citizenship if their parents were in the country illegally or visiting under temporary status.