Readers will be forgiven if they're experiencing a level of whiplash over court rulings on certain topics, birthright citizenship being one of them. We know the Supreme Court has spoken on the matter — first nibbling at the edges in Trump v. CASA in 2025 (the 2024 term) on the procedural question of universal injunctions, then taking a sizable chomp out of President Trump's efforts to curtail it, effectively invalidating his initial executive order as unconstitutional in late June of 2026. 

But after the High Court handed down its decision in Trump v. Barbara, the President opted to try a narrower approach, issuing another executive order in August that identified additional categories of U.S.-born children that arguably placed them outside birthright citizenship.

Well...that effort has now been blocked by U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman (Maryland — Biden) via a preliminary injunction issued on Wednesday. Now, it's important to note that Boardman's order does not strike down the entire EO — or even every new category included in it. Instead, her ruling bars the administration from applying the EO to the nationwide class of children whom the Supreme Court has already declared citizens at birth.

Because of all the twists and turns, a brief refresher is in order:

President Trump's new EO, rather than relying simply on the parents' immigration status, identifies additional circumstances under which the administration says a U.S.-born child would not qualify, including:

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  1. a parent deemed an “alien enemy,” including members of designated terrorist organizations;
  2. certain foreign-government employees;
  3. so-called birth tourism/fraud — including commercial arrangements to come here to give birth or use a U.S.-based surrogate.

There's also a territorial provision in the EO (for someone born in a U.S. territory or its territorial waters where Congress has not provided citizenship by federal statute), but Boardman specifically leaves that untouched because it doesn't affect anyone in the certified class.

The administration contends that Barbara didn't necessarily establish an exhaustive list of exceptions, and the historical exceptions are broad enough to encompass these circumstances. 

But Boardman begs to differ. She reasons that SCOTUS already decided that children fitting the same class definition are "citizens at birth." And while the administration argued that Barbara merely held that having an unlawfully/temporarily present parent doesn't by itself disqualify a child, Boardman calls that a “distorted interpretation” and says the government “completely misread[s]” the decision: 

The Supreme Court has spoken: Children in the certified class are ‘citizens at birth.’ . . . Barbara is the law of the land. The President must follow it.

To be clear, Boardman's injunction protects the entire nationwide certified class. And for those who wonder about SCOTUS' ruling on nationwide/universal injunctions, CASA restricted judges from extending injunctions to nonparties merely because plaintiffs successfully challenged a government policy. Here, Boardman certified a Rule 23(b)(2) class. Class members are represented in the litigation, and this one injunction protects the class (but only those in the class).

Alright, so now what? 

For now, agencies can't enforce the 2026 EO against class members or refuse to recognize their citizenship while the injunction remains in place. But Boardman did leave the door open for the administration to seek to narrow or lift the injunction once it issues implementing guidance, if that guidance resolves some of the concerns underlying her ruling. Either way, this one's likely headed back up on appeal.