A US federal judge on Friday declined to immediately block President Donald Trump's latest executive order seeking to restrict birthright citizenship, allowing the measure to survive its first legal challenge.
Reuters reported that US District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland, rejected a request from immigrant rights advocates for a temporary restraining order against the new policy.
Trump issued the latest order after the US Supreme Court rejected his earlier attempt to curb birthright citizenship. Boardman had previously blocked the administration from enforcing Trump's initial 2025 executive order on the issue.
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According to Reuters, the latest ruling does not represent a final decision on the legality of Trump's new order. Instead, it means the policy will not be immediately halted while the broader legal challenge proceeds.
Earlier, US President Donald Trump signed two fresh executive orders to curb birthright citizenship, renewing his challenge to a provision of the US Constitution despite the Supreme Court having struck down his earlier attempt on the issue.
Limiting birthright citizenship has remained a top priority for Trump, with his administration targeting what it calls birth tourism," where pregnant foreign nationals travel to the US so their children automatically acquire citizenship upon birth.
After his June 30 setback at the Supreme Court, Trump had urged Congress to legislate on the matter, but opted to sign executive orders instead, which set government policy but do not carry the same legal weight as laws passed by Congress.
The administration contends the new directive falls outside the scope of the Supreme Court's ruling, arguing it reinterprets narrow, historical exceptions to birthright citizenship.
ALSO READ: Trump's Birthright Citizenship Curbs Get Knocked Down By US Supreme Court
White House aide Stephen Miller, at the signing ceremony in the Oval Office, declared, "That practice of birth tourism is, as of the signing of this order, hereby banned," Reuters reported.
Trump, addressing reporters at the same event, called the Supreme Court's June ruling a very unfortunate decision, adding that birth tourism was not the way it's supposed to work and asserting that people were buying their way in to the country. He said the administration would not allow the practice to continue.
The orders also restrict citizenship rights for children born to foreign government employees and those classified as enemies of the state in the US, and could extend to US territories should Congress pass a proposed law ending automatic citizenship there.
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