GREENBELT, Md. — A federal judge on Friday declined to immediately block President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, while raising questions about whether the new executive order can survive further legal scrutiny.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman rejected a request from immigrant rights advocates for a temporary restraining order against the measure. She said the existing lawsuit before her challenged Trump’s earlier 2025 birthright citizenship order and had not yet been updated to include the new directive issued on Aug. 6.
Boardman, however, allowed the plaintiffs to supplement their complaint and set a rapid schedule for further arguments over the new order.
Also Read: Federal Judge Rejects Trump Bid to Move Hush Money Case
Trump issued the new executive order after the Supreme Court rejected his administration’s broader attempt to restrict birthright citizenship in June.
The earlier order sought to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the United States when neither parent was a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. The Supreme Court found that the effort violated the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Trump’s Aug. 6 order takes a narrower approach.
It directs federal agencies not to recognize citizenship in several specified circumstances when neither parent is a U.S. citizen. Those include children whose parents are certain foreign government employees, cases involving fraud or commercial arrangements to obtain citizenship, and children whose parents fall within the order’s definition of an “alien enemy.”
The administration has also separately moved against what it describes as “birth tourism,” in which foreign nationals travel to the United States intending to give birth so that their child receives U.S. citizenship.
During Friday’s hearing, Boardman questioned whether the Supreme Court’s June ruling provided a legal basis for some of the exceptions contained in Trump’s new order.
The judge nevertheless concluded that she could not immediately stop the directive through a lawsuit that did not yet formally challenge it.
Lawyers for immigrant rights groups had asked Boardman to prevent the administration from enforcing the new policy. The groups previously secured an order from the same judge blocking Trump’s original 2025 directive.
Justice Department lawyers opposed the request.
They told the court that federal agencies have not yet issued the guidance necessary to implement the Aug. 6 order. The executive order gives agencies 30 days to publish guidance on how the policy will apply to their operations.
That guidance is expected by Sept. 5.
The legal dispute centers on the 14th Amendment, which states that people born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are U.S. citizens.
Birthright citizenship has long applied to most people born on U.S. soil, regardless of their parents’ immigration status, although narrow exceptions have historically existed.
Trump has repeatedly sought to change how those protections are applied as part of his broader immigration agenda.
Friday’s ruling does not decide whether the Aug. 6 order is constitutional. Instead, it leaves the administration’s policy in place for now while allowing its opponents to formally expand their lawsuit and seek another court order blocking its enforcement.
That could set up another significant court fight over the scope of birthright citizenship only two months after the Supreme Court ruled on Trump’s previous attempt to restrict it.
