Trump Citizenship Limit Blocked Indefinitely After Earlier Pause

(Bloomberg) -- A federal judge in Maryland blocked President Donald Trump’s move to restrict automatic birthright citizenship, handing Trump another legal setback in his effort to upend more than a century of US law and court precedents as part of a broader immigration crackdown.

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US District Judge Deborah Boardman held on Wednesday that there is a “very strong” likelihood that the executive order that Trump signed on his first day in office violates the US Constitution. Her order — which applies nationwide and will be in effect as long as the case before her is pending — expands on an earlier, temporary pause from a federal judge in Seattle who blasted the administration for taking an action that he said was “blatantly unconstitutional.”

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The case in Maryland, brought by immigrant advocacy groups, is one of at least nine lawsuits filed to date challenging Trump’s executive action, which would apply not only to babies born to people without any legal status in the US, but also to those born to parents legally in the country on visas to work, study or visit. Judges in Seattle and Boston are holding hearings later this week to consider whether to issue similar injunctions.

Boardman’s decision can be appealed. The US Justice Department lawyer who argued the case said he couldn’t immediately commit to whether the government would challenge her decision in the 4th US Court of Appeals, but the department had previously said it would “vigorously” defend Trump’s action.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Boardman announced her decision in the courtroom after hearing arguments. She said that the challengers had “easily” met the legal standard for a preliminary injunction barring the administration from taking any steps to carry out Trump’s order, which was set to fully take effect on Feb. 19.

“The executive order conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment, contradicts 125-year-old binding Supreme Court precedent and runs counter to our nation’s 250-year history of citizenship by birth,” the judge said.

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Less Work

The Justice Department had argued that an injunction would harm the government, noting that the previous 14-day temporary restraining order entered by the Seattle judge meant that agencies couldn’t move forward with figuring out how to put Trump’s action into practice. Boardman was skeptical, noting that a pause meant there was less work for the government to do.

“If anything,” the judge said, the government would be “improved” by an injunction that prevented an unconstitutional executive action. She said that citizenship was “a most precious right” guaranteed by the 14th Amendment and that the longstanding “law and tradition” would remain the status quo while the case went ahead.

Boardman also rejected the government’s request to limit an injunction to the groups that brought the case, saying that an order affecting citizenship rights required a “uniform policy.”

The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868 after the Civil War to clarify the status of babies born to formerly enslaved people, has long been interpreted by courts as giving citizenship to nearly all babies born on US soil. It states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

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Trump’s order turns on what it means to be “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Some conservatives have argued this language should be interpreted to exclude people who illegally enter the country. The more common understanding of the phrase has been that even undocumented people are covered since they can be charged with crimes under federal and state laws and pay taxes, for example.

(Updated with additional details from the hearing and context starting in the fourth paragraph.)

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