Sept. 2 (UPI) — A federal judge on Wednesday blocked U.S. President Donald Trump‘s latest attempt at limiting birthright citizenship, saying Trump’s order “is almost certainly unconstitutional.”
Trump signed two executive orders related to the topic on Aug. 6, about a month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his earlier order banning birthright citizenship.
One of the August orders expanded the list of non-citizens whose children would not be granted citizenship automatically. These categories include children of whom either parent is “an alien enemy” or “a foreign government employee.”
The other would ban so-called birth tourism, which is when a traveler enters another country specifically to give birth there for citizenship reasons – a practice that is already illegal.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman said in Wednesday’s ruling that the August executive orders are likely unconstitutional “for the simple reason that the Supreme Court … already decided that the children in the class are citizens at birth” in its June ruling.
“This Court must, once again, preliminarily enjoin enforcement of the President’s most recent attempt to strip the right to citizenship from them,” Boardman wrote.
Birthright citizenship stems from the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
In its June decision, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 against Trump’s original executive order, which sought to end birthright citizenship for any children born to parents who are not U.S. citizens.
Chief Justice John Roberts said there was “scant evidence” for Trump’s interpretation of the principles of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 after the U.S. Civil War to protect the rights ofthe formerly enslaved.
“Citizenship then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community,” Roberts wrote. “… We keep that promise today.”
Trump said the Supreme Court ruling “was too bad for our Country” and called on Congress to pass legislation against birthright citizenship.