Biden Judge Blocks Trump’s Renewed Efforts To Curb Birthplace Citizenship

The same Biden-appointed judge who gave Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s attempted killer a sweetheart prison sentence is now seeking to block President Trump’s renewed efforts to stop America’s birthplace citizenship crisis. Maryland-based District Judge Deborah Boardman issued a preliminary injunction on Wednesday against Trump’s August executive order cracking down on the practice in ways the administration says are not covered by the Supreme Court’s recent Trump v. Barbara decision. While six justices found Trump’s 2025 birthplace citizenship directive to be unlawful, five justices went as far as to rule that children born to illegal aliens and foreign “birth tourists” on U.S. soil are citizens. As The Federalist’s Breccan Thies reported, Trump’s post-Barbara order “clarifies situations the president does not believe are covered by the high court’s ruling, including cases of children born to an ‘alien enemy,’ such as the children of terrorists, namely those found to be members of a Foreign Terrorist Organization or Specially Designated Global Terrorist.” The new edict “also clarifies that the children of foreign government employees, like ambassadors and embassy workers, are not entitled to birthplace citizenship.” The order was accompanied by a directive aimed at curbing “birth tourism.” Having blocked the president’s 2025 birthplace citizenship order last year, the Biden-appointed Boardman (unsurprisingly) wasn’t convinced by the administration’s new arguments. In her 35-page opinion, she argued that challengers are likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that the August order “infringes on the class members’ Fourteenth Amendment right to citizenship by birth.” “The 2026 Executive Order is almost certainly unconstitutional as applied to the certified class for the simple reason that the Supreme Court in Barbara already decided that the children in the class are citizens at birth,” Boardman wrote. “This Court must, once again, preliminarily enjoin enforcement of the President’s most recent attempt to strip the right to citizenship from them.” She further noted that the injunction “does not enjoin the issuance of public guidance on the [order’s] implementation; it enjoins the denial of citizenship to members of the class whom Barbara declared were citizens.” Boardman granted plaintiffs’ request to certify a class of individuals covered by the president’s order. Justice Samuel Alito notably penned a concurring opinion (joined by Justice Clarence Thomas) in the Supreme Court’s Trump v. CASA (2025) decision warning that federal judges could weaponize class certification to effectively sidestep CASA‘s limitation on lower courts’ use of nationwide injunctions. [READ: White House, Congress Need To Assert Their Dominance Over Supreme Court On Birthplace Citizenship] Boardman is most widely known for giving a lenient sentence to the man who attempted to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh following the leak of the court’s 2022 draft Dobbs opinion. While prosecutors recommended at least 30 years in prison, the Biden appointee sentenced the wannabe killer to just eight years behind bars — a decision seemingly stemming from her sympathies for the man’s “transgender” status and concern that he would be placed in a prison incongruent with his gender-bending delusions. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, introduced articles of impeachment against Boardman for her activism from the bench last year. The Texas congressman also proposed a bill amendment to a January spending package that sought to strip funding from Boardman and fellow judicial activist James Boasberg’s offices — a move that House Democrats defeated with help from 46 Republicans. To date, the GOP-run House has not initiated impeachment proceedings against Boardman, Boasberg, or any other rogue judges for their egregious actions on the bench. Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics and RealClearHealth. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood