Trump Birthright Order Blocked Again in Fresh Legal Setback

President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship was blocked nationwide for the third time in less than a month, the latest sign that a US Supreme Court decision restricting “universal injunctions” is having little impact on the dispute.

The injunctions set up what is likely to be yet another set of appeals that could reach the Supreme Court, which has largely backed Trump in his broad crackdown on immigration. The justices haven’t yet taken up the question of whether Trump’s birthright citizenship order is constitutional.

A federal judge in Boston ruled on Friday that an injunction pausing Trump’s order nationwide is the only way to offer full protection to the Democratic-led states the filed the suit. The judge said his actions are in line with the Supreme Court’s findings.

US Judge Leo Sorokin said in his ruling that he could not narrow his injunction in part because Justice Department lawyers hadn’t offered useful details about how such a ruling would work.

“With stakes this high, the court simply cannot adopt the defendants’ blasé approach to the details and workability of a more limited injunction,” the judge said.

A nationwide injunction protecting all affected babies was granted in a class-action suit in New Hampshire on July 10, while a federal appeals court this week upheld a similar block in a suit brought by four Democratic-led states. The new ruling comes in a suit brought by 18 states. A judge in a separate class-action suit is weighing another potential injunction.

The Fight Over Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order: QuickTake

Trump’s order would restrict citizenship to babies with at least one parent who is a US citizen or green card holder. Critics say it violates a provision of the Constitution that grants citizenship to virtually every baby born in the US. The government says the directive closes a loophole that encourages illegal immigration.

Trump’s order was initially put on hold nationwide months ago in three separate cases. But the Supreme Court on June 27 paused those orders after ruling that judges generally can’t issue nationwide injunctions that block federal policies outright.

The justices returned the cases to the lower courts to weigh whether their injunctions needed to be narrowed or amended so that they provide relief only to the people or groups that sued. Sorokin held a hearing on the matter earlier this week.

The Supreme Court’s opinion, hailed as a major victory by the Trump administration, hasn’t stopped judges from finding that broad injunctions against the president’s birthright citizenship order are still necessary to protect US-born children of migrants while the cases proceed.

In their request to maintain a nationwide injunction, the Democratic-led states said the Supreme Court’s finding on so-called universal injunctions “has no bearing on this case.” The states argue that a nationwide injunction is the only way to prevent harm that they say would be caused by allowing the executive order to take effect in some states, creating a chaotic patchwork of citizenship.

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