Judge Blocks Trump's Latest Attempt to Limit Birthright Citizenship

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images A federal judge has smacked down President Donald Trump’s latest effort to end birthright citizenship, writing that the administration had “distorted” and “completely misread” the Supreme Court’s June ruling on the matter.

On his first day back in office last year, Trump signed an executive order purporting to eliminate birthright citizenship for children born to non-citizens who were temporarily or unlawfully in the U.S., despite the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee that “all persons born… in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” are citizens.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that the executive order was illegal, only for Trump to sign two more executive orders in August attempting to strip birthright citizenship from children of “alien enemies” and mothers who fraudulently requested tourist visas intending to give birth in the U.S.

In an at-times exasperated decision temporarily blocking the new executive order from taking effect, U.S.

District Judge Deborah Boardman wrote that the administration’s claims that the order complied with the Supreme Court’s ruling in June’s Trump v.

Barbara rang hollow.

“No presidential executive order can undo what the Supreme Court has done,” wrote Boardman, a Joe Biden appointee.

The government had tried to argue that children born to parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the U.S. are not automatically citizens at birth—only that those children were “not disqualified from birthright citizenship” under the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“Not surprisingly, the defendants do not cite any language from Barbara to support this distorted interpretation of the opinion, and of course there is none,” Boardman wrote.

“Though defendants may not like it, the… Court’s conclusion was clear.” The justices explicitly held that the children at issue were both born in the U.S. and subject to its jurisdiction, meaning they were “citizens at birth,” she added.

The Daily Beast has approached the White House for comment.

The ruling also pointed to the government’s “concerning pattern of behavior” labeling immigrants “enemy aliens” and “terrorists” without providing any solid evidence.

It cited the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador after the government “hastily labeled him an MS-13 member,” Boardman wrote.