A federal judge in New Hampshire has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at restricting birthright citizenship in the United States, marking a pivotal moment in the ongoing legal battles surrounding the interpretation of the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
The ruling, issued Thursday by Judge Joseph Laplante of the US District Court of New Hampshire, comes after a renewed legal challenge via a class-action lawsuit—an avenue opened by a recent Supreme Court decision.
Trump’s directive, which declares that children born on US soil to undocumented immigrants or individuals on temporary visas should not be granted automatic citizenship, was initially met with a series of nationwide injunctions issued by lower courts. These judges cited the clear language of the 14th Amendment, which affirms that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” are citizens.
However, in late June, the conservative-majority US Supreme Court dealt a blow to the legal strategies used to counter the order by limiting the authority of individual judges to issue nationwide injunctions on executive policies.
Despite that ruling, the Court left open the door for class-action suits as a mechanism to challenge federal directives. Seizing this opportunity, Trump’s critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), filed a fresh class-action suit seeking to invalidate the order on behalf of all affected children. On Thursday, Judge Laplante granted class-action status and issued a preliminary injunction, temporarily suspending the order from taking effect while litigation continues.
While the judge’s decision provides a significant reprieve, he also paused its implementation for seven days, giving the Trump administration time to file an appeal.
Cody Wofsy, the ACLU attorney who presented the case in court, hailed the ruling as a major triumph. “This is a huge victory,” Wofsy said. “It will help protect the citizenship of all children born in the United States, as the Constitution intended.”
Trump’s administration has argued that the 14th Amendment—ratified in the aftermath of the Civil War to ensure citizenship rights for freed slaves—was never meant to apply to the children of individuals in the country unlawfully or on short-term visas. That narrow interpretation has long been rejected by constitutional scholars and was firmly repudiated in an 1898 Supreme Court case that affirmed the broader reading of the clause.
Nonetheless, the current Court has steered clear of directly ruling on the constitutionality of Trump’s order. Instead, its June decision focused exclusively on curbing the reach of federal judges to issue sweeping nationwide injunctions. The ruling left room for the order to take effect but delayed its implementation until the end of July, allowing legal opponents time to mount new challenges.
Thursday’s injunction marks the first major blow to the policy under this new legal landscape. Previously, several lower courts had blocked the order on the grounds that it contradicts the Constitution. With Judge Laplante’s decision, the case now enters a more complex phase, where both constitutional interpretation and procedural legitimacy will be contested in higher courts.
If upheld, the ruling could serve as a vital precedent in safeguarding the rights of US-born children of undocumented immigrants and foreign visitors—a cornerstone of American constitutional law that many argue is essential to the country’s democratic identity.
As legal experts and advocacy groups await the Trump administration’s response, the case is expected to advance to appellate courts, and potentially return to the Supreme Court, where the ultimate fate of the executive order—and possibly the future of birthright citizenship—could be decided.
What you should know
A federal judge has temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s attempt to restrict birthright citizenship through a new class-action lawsuit.
The ruling protects the constitutional rights of US-born children while litigation unfolds. It represents the first major legal challenge to Trump’s policy since the Supreme Court curtailed nationwide injunctions but allowed new court paths like class-action suits to move forward.
