On Monday, February 10, 2025, U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante reportedly blocked Donald Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship. He follows U.S. District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle, Washington and U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland as the third judge barring Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship.
“I’m going to grant the injunction,” Laplante said. “I had a pretty good idea I was going to do that before your arguments, but I wanted to give you the opportunity and ask you a few questions.”
On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order arguing “the Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.” Under the executive order, the Trump administration does not recognize children born in the United States as citizens unless one or both parents are “United States citizen[s] or lawful permanent resident[s] at the time of said person’s birth.” In addition, the Trump administration will empower the Secretary of State, Homeland Security and the Commissioner of Social Security to “take all appropriate measures to ensure that the regulations and policies of their respective departments and agencies are consistent with this order.”
“The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,'” the executive order reads.
In the aftermath of this executive order being signed, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has reportedly performed raids in several cities, including Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. However, judges in two states and the District of Columbia have pushed back against this order and indefinitely blocked it.
“It has become ever more apparent that, to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals,” U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said. “The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain.”
