A federal judge in Maryland blocked President Donald Trump’s move to restrict automatic birthright citizenship, handing Trump another legal setback in his effort to upend more than a century of US law and court precedents as part of a broader immigration crackdown.
US District Judge Deborah Boardman held on Wednesday that there is a “very strong” likelihood that the executive order that Trump signed on his first day in office violates the US Constitution. Her order — which applies nationwide and will be in effect as long as the case before her is pending — expands on an earlier, temporary pause from a federal judge in Seattle who blasted the administration for taking an action that he said was “blatantly unconstitutional.”
