Court halts Trump’s new birthright citizenship curbs

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event to sign executive orders related to birthright citizenship and the polysilicon industry, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Aug. 6 | REUTERS

Sep 3, 2026

A federal judge blocked the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump from carrying out, for now, the president’s latest effort to impose new limits on automatic birthright citizenship after losing an earlier legal fight before the Supreme Court.

In an order on Wednesday, a U.S. judge in Maryland ruled that Trump’s August executive order expanding the categories of noncitizen parents whose children would be ineligible for citizenship is likely unlawful as applied to a nationwide class of families whose legal status was already at issue in earlier court fights. The new exclusions would include anyone who took part in a “commercial transaction to ensure” they give birth in the United States.

The fresh setback to Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda puts the fight over birthright citizenship on a path to return to the Supreme Court. The U.S. Justice Department next could ask a federal appeals court to lift the district judge’s order and allow officials to move ahead with implementing the president’s plan while the legal fights continue to play out.

In a time of both misinformation and too much information,
quality journalism is more crucial than ever.
By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.