A US federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s latest bid to restrict birthright citizenship.
In June, the US supreme court struck down Trump’s executive
order seeking to limit birthright citizenship — a policy he introduced on his
first day in office.
In a 6-3 ruling, the court held that the US constitution
guarantees citizenship at birth to children born in the country, including
those whose parents are undocumented immigrants or are residing in the US on a
temporary basis.
But last month, Trump signed two new executive orders to
scale back American birthright citizenship.
Trump’s new orders deny automatic citizenship not only to
illegal migrants but to children of international legal workers, including
employees at a foreign embassy and employees of international organisations
such as the United Nations and the World Bank.
The new order also denies birthright citizenship to children
of parents the government deemed “alien enemies” and parents who engaged in
“birth tourism” — the practice of pregnant women travelling to the US on
non-immigrant visas to give birth so their children can obtain US citizenship.
Though the US has yet to issue guidelines on how those
restrictions would work in practice, the State Department proposed that all
parents or legal guardians provide proof of citizenship, such as a valid US
passport or birth certificate, or evidence of their immigration status, such as
an I-94 form or a legal permanent residency card, when submitting a passport
application for their children.
Immigrants and lawyers subsequently challenged the executive
order in court.
Issuing a preliminary injunction on Wednesday, Deborah
Boardman, a US district judge, said the new executive orders were likely an
infringement of the constitutional right to automatic citizenship granted to
people born in the country.
Boardman said the directive “is almost certainly
unconstitutional” and would remain so until the lawsuit brought by immigrant
advocacy groups is settled.
“This court must, once again, preliminarily enjoin
enforcement of the president’s most recent attempt to strip the right to
citizenship from them,” she said.
The Trump administration is likely to appeal the ruling.
In February 2025, Boardman blocked a similar executive order
seeking to end birthright citizenship in the US.
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com