Two months after the Supreme Court gutted President Trump's first-day order ending automatic citizenship for children of illegal aliens and temporary visitors, a Maryland federal judge has now blocked the narrower follow-up that targeted the actual business model: birth tourism.
Migrants, including a pregnant Haitian woman seeking to give birth in the United States, are apprehended by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Yuma, Ariz., on Dec. 7, 2021. John Moore/Getty ImagesU.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman (Biden), who already enjoined the 2025 order, issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday against the August 6 executive order titled "Ending Birth Tourism and Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship."
Boardman wrote that the new order is "almost certainly unconstitutional as applied to the certified class" because the Supreme Court in Barbara v. Trump already declared those children "citizens at birth."
"The Supreme Court has spoken," she said. "Barbara is the law of the land. The President must follow it."
No executive order, she added, "can undo what the Supreme Court has done."
The injunction covers children born after February 19, 2025 - the class Boardman certified last year - including future births. State, DHS, and Social Security are barred from denying or refusing to recognize citizenship papers for that group. Children born before that date are outside this order. Agencies can still write implementation guidance. The administration had told the court that guidance was due around September 5 and that any lawsuit was premature. Boardman was not interested.
