- Messages
- 21,578
BREAKING: Maryland Judge Blocks Trump Birthright Citizenship Order
BREAKING: Maryland Judge Blocks Trump Birthright Citizenship Order - Law360
A Maryland federal judge Wednesday issued a nationwide injunction blocking President Donald Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship.
www.law360.com
Enforcement of the Inauguration Day executive order, issued just hours after Trump took office, was first halted by a Washington federal judge's 14-day temporary restraining order on Jan. 23, in a challenge brought by state attorneys general from Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon. That restraining order was set to expire this week with another hearing in Seattle scheduled for Thursday.
But in a bench ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman granted a preliminary injunction that will remain in place through the resolution of the Maryland case, barring reversal by the Fourth Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court. The injunction was sought by immigrant rights advocates CASA, the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, and three pregnant women whose children would have been deprived U.S. citizenship if the executive order had taken effect for children born on or after Feb. 19. She held that the plaintiffs had "easily" met their burden for a preliminary injunction and that the executive order would likely be found unconstitutional.
"The U.S. Supreme Court has resoundingly rejected the president's interpretation of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. In fact, no court in the country has ever endorsed the president's interpretation," Judge Boardman said following an hour of oral argument at the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland Wednesday morning. "This court will not be the first."
An attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice had told Judge Boardman that if she were to issue an injunction, it should only apply to the individual plaintiffs in the case in Maryland. But Judge Boardman said that the nationwide concern of citizenship "demands a uniform policy."
"Today, virtually every baby born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen upon birth. That is the law and tradition of our country," she said. "That law and tradition are – and will remain – the status quo pending the resolution of this case. The government will not be harmed by a preliminary injunction that prevents it from enforcing the executive order likely to be found unconstitutional. If anything, our system of government is improved by an injunction that prevents unconstitutional executive action."
