Trump birthright citizenship order blocked by judge

A US federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a new executive order limiting who qualifies for birthright citizenship.

US District Judge Deborah Boardman of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction on Wednesday after rights groups challenged President Donald Trump's August 6 order targeting what he called “birth tourism.”

“The Supreme Court has spoken: Children in the certified class are ‘citizens at birth,’” Boardman wrote in her 35-page ruling. She added that the president's August order “is almost certainly unconstitutional.”

The ruling thwarts Trump's latest attempt to restrict birthright citizenship after the US Supreme Court rejected his previous effort.

Trump's first executive order on the issue said children born to parents in the United States illegally or on temporary visas would not automatically become US citizens. Lower courts blocked that move, ruling that under the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, nearly everyone born on US soil is an American citizen. The Supreme Court agreed.

Shana Khader, legal director at the Maryland-based group We Are CASA, welcomed the new ruling, saying the Trump administration had “lost again today” on birthright citizenship.

Trump's efforts to curb birthright citizenship are part of a wider immigration campaign that includes expelling millions of undocumented migrants and removing deportation protections from nationals of more than a dozen countries.