A US federal judge has declined to immediately halt President Donald Trump’s latest executive order seeking to narrow birthright citizenship, while raising serious questions about whether the directive can survive constitutional scrutiny.
US District Judge Deborah Boardman, sitting in Greenbelt, Maryland, rejected an application for an immediate restraining order filed by immigrant rights groups. The groups had previously obtained a ruling from the same court blocking enforcement of Trump’s earlier 2025 order targeting birthright citizenship.
The judge’s decision was based largely on a procedural hurdle: the lawsuit before her did not specifically challenge Trump’s new 2026 order. Boardman said she therefore could not block a directive that had not been included in the existing complaint.
That does not mean the new order has escaped judicial scrutiny.
Boardman permitted the challengers to amend their complaint and set an expedited schedule for further arguments. During the hearing, she questioned the legal basis for the administration’s attempt to carve out new exceptions to the constitutional guarantee of citizenship at birth.
“As far as I can tell, this is unprecedented,” she said.
Supreme Court ruling hangs over the dispute
The latest legal battle follows a major Supreme Court ruling on Trump’s earlier attempt to restrict birthright citizenship.
On June 30, the Supreme Court rejected the administration’s initial effort to deny citizenship to children born in the United States whose parents were neither US citizens nor lawful permanent residents. The ruling found that the policy conflicted with the citizenship provision of the 14th Amendment.
Trump subsequently issued a new executive order on August 6. Rather than simply repeating the earlier policy, the new directive specifically targets situations including so-called “birth tourism”, in which women travel to the United States to give birth so their children can obtain citizenship.
The order also seeks to deny citizenship to children in certain other circumstances, including where parents work for foreign governments, have engaged in fraud to secure citizenship, or fall under the classification of “alien enemies.”
Implementation is still pending
The administration has argued that the court should wait before intervening because federal agencies have not yet released the guidance required to put the new order into practice.
That guidance is expected by September 5.
Boardman, however, appeared unconvinced that the issue should simply be put on hold until then. She questioned how the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling could accommodate an exception specifically aimed at birth tourism.
The next stage of the case will therefore focus on the amended challenge to Trump’s latest order. While the judge has not stopped the directive for now, her pointed questioning signals that its constitutional foundations are likely to face another closely watched test in court.
