FILE – President Donald Trump speaks to the media, Friday, June 27, 2025, in the briefing room of the White House in Washington (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File).
A federal court has again barred the Trump administration from moving forward with plans to undo the grant of birthright citizenship.
In a New Hampshire courtroom late Thursday morning, U.S. District Judge Joseph Normand Laplante, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a nationwide injunction from the bench prohibiting the enforcement of the executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Jan. 20.
The judge expressed unequivocal disdain for the effort to do away with the long-established constitutional right — an effort which has been serially frustrated by every district court yet to weigh in on it.
“The preliminary injunction is just not a close call to the court,” Laplante intoned, according to a courtroom report by CNN. “The deprivation of U.S. citizenship and an abrupt change of policy that was longstanding … that”s irreparable harm.”
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During the hearing, the judge reportedly went on to muse that U.S. citizenship “is the greatest privilege that exists in the world.”
Laplante’s ruling creates a nationwide class that “will be comprised only of those deprived of citizenship,” in line with a request from immigrant rights attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The judge quickly issued a one-page formal order.
“The court hereby finds that Class Petitioners have demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of their claims; that Class Petitioners are likely to suffer irreparable harm if the order is not granted; that the potential harm to the class petitioners if the order is not granted outweighs the potential harm to Respondents if the order is granted; and that the issuance of this order is in the public interest,” the order reads.
The judge went on to stay the effect of his order for seven days to give the Trump administration time to file an appeal.
In a nominal break from past decisions, the court also ordered the plaintiffs to pay a bond of one dollar.
The ruling comes on the heels of the recent landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to curtail the availability of nationwide, or universal, injunctions. The justices, however, left substantially similar — though procedurally distinct — relief on the table: the class action.
The judge took stock of the case’s trajectory in light of his own prior ruling and the high court’s late-June sea change in civil procedure.
“I’m the judge who wasn’t comfortable with issuing a nationwide injunction. Class action is different,” Laplante said on Thursday. “The Supreme Court suggested class action is a better option.”
Earlier this year, in a separate case birthright citizenship case, Laplante issued a limited injunction covering the plaintiffs alone.
“The court has little difficulty concluding that the denial of citizenship status to newborns, even temporarily, constitutes irreparable harm,” the judge opined in an order explaining the injunction issued in that earlier case. “The denial of citizenship to the plaintiffs’ members’ children would render the children either undocumented noncitizens or stateless entirely. Their families would have more trouble obtaining early-life benefits especially critical for newborns, such as healthcare and food assistance. The children would risk deportation to countries they have never visited. Although the defendants argue that the harm would be hypothetical and speculative, the court disagrees.”
The present lawsuit was filed in late June – the same day the Supreme Court revoked nationwide injunctive relief – by expectant parents and parents of children who say they would be negatively affected by Trump’s executive order.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys welcomed the court’s ruling in a statement provided to Law&Crime.
“This ruling is a huge victory and will help protect the citizenship of all children born in the United States, as the Constitution intended,” ACLU attorney Cody Wofsy, who argued the case, said. “We are fighting to ensure President Trump doesn’t trample on the citizenship rights of one single child.”
