A federal district court in Maryland has imposed a preliminary injunction blocking a birthright citizenship executive order issued on 6 August 2026, ruling it almost certainly unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court’s June 2026 decision in Trump v. Barbara. Judge Deborah Boardman of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland handed down the ruling on 2 September 2026 in Casa, Inc. v. Trump, making it the first judicial decision to address the new order directly.
The injunction covers a certified plaintiff class: any child born in the United States after 19 February 2025 whose mother was unlawfully present at the time of birth and whose father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident, or whose mother was present lawfully but temporarily and whose father similarly lacked that status. The class was originally certified during litigation challenging the earlier Executive Order 14160.
What the Court Found on the Birthright Citizenship Executive Order
In her 35-page opinion, Judge Boardman quoted the core constitutional point directly: ‘[t]he 2026 Executive Order is almost certainly unconstitutional as applied to the certified class for the simple reason that the Supreme Court in Barbara already decided that the children in the class are citizens at birth.’
The Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on all persons ‘born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ The central dispute in Barbara was whether ‘jurisdiction’ tracked a narrow set of well-established exceptions or something broader, closer to the concept of ‘allegiance’ to the United States. The Congressional Research Service has confirmed that the Supreme Court resolved that question in favour of the plaintiffs’ narrower reading.
Judge Boardman’s opinion distils that holding. The Supreme Court, she explains, distinguished between persons over whom the United States has full governing power and those over whom it does not. Only the latter fall within the narrow exceptions to birthright citizenship: children of foreign ministers and members of certain 19th-century Indian tribes over whom the United States had ceded a measure of territorial jurisdiction. Everyone else born on United States soil, including children of undocumented immigrants and those born to parents on temporary visas, is subject to United States law and therefore entitled to citizenship at birth.
The Constitutional Accountability Center has reported that the Barbara majority held the Fourteenth Amendment’s framers ’embraced a rule in which everyone born in the United States and generally subject to American authority would acquire citizenship by birth, no matter the status of their parents,’ rejecting the government’s argument that domicile or allegiance should be the operative test.
The Case and the August 2026 Order
Casa, Inc. v. Trump (Civil No. DLB-25-201) was originally filed on 21 January 2025, the day after President Trump signed Executive Order 14160, ‘Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.’ That earlier order specified its restrictions would apply only to persons born within the United States more than 30 days after its signing, producing an effective date of 19 February 2025.
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Trump v. Barbara, handed down on 30 June 2026, struck down that earlier order. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for a majority joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson; Justice Kavanaugh concurred in the judgment on statutory grounds; Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito dissented. The vote on the order’s constitutionality was 5-4. Full case details are available on the SCOTUSblog case page.
The August 2026 order under challenge in the current proceedings targets four categories of children: those born to parents linked to designated foreign terrorist organisations; those born to parents employed by foreign governments or international organisations with immunity; those whose parents are alleged to have engaged in ‘birth tourism’; and those born in American Samoa, where Congress has not extended citizenship by statute. Judge Boardman’s injunction does not cover the American Samoa category, which raises distinct statutory rather than constitutional questions.
The motion for the preliminary injunction was brought by immigrant families together with We Are CASA, the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, and the Georgetown University Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, which has published the full opinion. The We Are CASA press release confirmed the 2 September 2026 ruling date.
One unresolved question concerns retroactivity. Judge Boardman’s opinion notes that the August 2026 order contains no language limiting its application to children born after it took effect, and the government’s assurances that it would not be applied retrospectively have not been tested. Judge Boardman had granted a nationwide injunction in February 2025 in the original CASA litigation, but the Supreme Court later overturned that universal order before addressing the constitutional merits in Barbara.
Subject to any onward appeal, the injunction stands. The government is likely to challenge the ruling; if it does, the appellate courts will be asked to apply a Supreme Court precedent whose majority reasoning leaves very little room for the administration’s position.
