Third Court This Month Blocks Trump’s Unconstitutional Birthright Order

For the third time since the U.S. Supreme Court used the case to limit nationwide injunctions in June, a court has blocked U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship from going into effect.

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin of Massachusetts ruled on Friday that a nationwide injunction he had granted to over 12 states still applied under an exception laid out in the Supreme Court decision.

“We are thrilled that the district court again barred President Trump’s flagrantly unconstitutional birthright citizenship order from taking effect anywhere,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin, whose state took the lead on bringing the case, said in a statement.

Trump issued an executive order in January ending birthright citizenship for children born to parents with no legal status, a move widely decried as unconstitutional. Several lawsuits followed, resulting in a nationwide injunction blocking the order from taking effect.

In June, the Supreme Court weighed in by limiting the ability of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions, but declining to comment on the constitutionality of the order itself. However, the nation’s highest court did say that states could receive nationwide injunctions if it was the only way to offer full relief, which Sorokin determined Friday was indeed the case.

The states had argued that the birthright order, in addition to being unconstitutional, would put millions of dollars for citizenship-dependent health insurance assistance at risk, according to The Associated Press. Sorokin determined anything less than a nationwide ban would not provide full relief to the states, given that people often move across state lines.

“The record does not support a finding that any narrower option would feasibly and adequately protect the plaintiffs from the injuries they have shown they are likely to suffer if the unlawful policy announced in the Executive Order takes effect during the pendency of this lawsuit,” Sorokin wrote in his decision.

His ruling followed two others blocking the order since the Supreme Court decision: A July 10 ruling from a federal New Hampshire judge establishing a nationwide class in a new class-action lawsuit, and a determination from a federal appeals court in San Francisco on Wednesday that the order was unconstitutional and the block could stay in effect to offer states relief.

In his decision Friday, Sorokin said the Trump administration was “entitled to pursue their interpretation of the 14th Amendment, and no doubt the Supreme Court will ultimately settle the question,” adding, “But in the meantime, for purposes of this lawsuit at this juncture, the Executive Order is unconstitutional.”

In response, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told Newsweek, “These courts are misinterpreting the purpose and the text of the 14th Amendment,” adding, “We look forward to being vindicated on appeal.”

Platkin, however, celebrated the ruling: “The district court’s decision, consistent with the Supreme Court’s own instructions, recognizes that this illegal action cannot take effect anywhere without harming New Jersey and the other states who joined in these challenges. American-born babies are American, just as they have been at every other time in our Nation’s history. The president cannot change that legal rule with the stroke of a pen.”