The White House tried again. A federal judge in Maryland said no again.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, in a 35-page order, blocked President Trump’s August executive order that tried to limit birthright citizenship. She wrote it is “almost certainly unconstitutional” as applied to the certified class, and she issued a preliminary injunction.
That is the adult version of “we already did this.”
What changed in August — and what didn’t
On January 20, 2025, Trump signed a broad order against citizenship at birth for children of people in the country illegally or temporarily. The Supreme Court shut that down in June in Trump v. Barbara. Boardman’s line this week: those children are “citizens at birth.”
On August 6 he signed a narrower order — EO 14418, “Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” The new version said agencies should not recognize citizenship when neither parent is a citizen and one of a list of labels applies: a parent is an “alien enemy,” a foreign-government employee, someone who paid for birthright (the administration’s “birth tourism” box), or the birth is in a territory where a statute does not confer citizenship.
The administration told the court any block was premature because agency guidance was not out yet. Boardman said the order itself already commands agencies to deny citizenship documents to broad categories of children. Guidance cannot fix that.
She cited Wong Kim Ark (1898) and Barbara. The carve-outs in the new memo, she wrote, do not look like the narrow exceptions the Supreme Court actually left standing.
Why this is still Friday’s story
Birth certificates and passports are how a baby becomes a file. An injunction is how that file stays a citizen while lawyers argue. Immigrant families and advocacy groups sued. The White House did not immediately comment.
Trump has been trying to rewrite the Fourteenth Amendment by executive order since the first day of the second term. Courts keep sending him back to the amendment.
What this means for you
If you are having a child in the United States, the Constitution is still the document that matters, not an August memo. If you work a vital-records counter, the injunction is your instruction until a higher court says otherwise.
Bottom line: he narrowed the order. She blocked the order. June’s Supreme Court sentence is still the law: the kids in that class are citizens at birth.
GLHR NEWS explains the news. Not investment, tax, or trading advice. Do your own work before you act.
