On February 5, 2025, in a lawsuit brought by five pregnant mothers, CASA, Inc., and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), the federal court for the District of Maryland issued a nationwide preliminary injunction preventing the federal government from enforcing or implementing the Trump administration’s January 20, 2025 Executive Order (“EO”) entitled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship [Executive Order]. This EO, which we reported on in our Alert of January 21, denies United States citizenship to persons born in the United States on or after February 19, 2025, whose parents were either not in lawful immigration status or held lawful nonimmigrant status at the time of the person’s birth.
In addition, the federal court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle issued on February 6 another preliminary injunction barring the implementation of the EO. The same court previously issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) that was in effect for fourteen days from January 23 and was set to expire on February 6. We reported this TRO in our Alert of January 27. The February 5 and 6 preliminary injunctions will remain in place indefinitely and will last until the court determines the legality of the EO or a higher court overturns the injunction. No action may therefore be taken by the federal government to enforce the EO while the injunction is in place and all persons born in the United States while the injunction remains valid will be United States citizens.
As we noted in our Alert, there are a number of other pending lawsuits challenging the EO that have been filed by twenty-two states and a number of civil rights organizations. As the lawsuits progress and appeals are filed and heard, it is possible that the legality of the EO will eventually be considered by the United States Supreme Court, especially if there is a split or difference of opinion on this legality between two or more federal circuit courts of appeal. It is also possible that the administration may withdraw the EO and reissue a new EO of more limited scope (limiting its applicability only to children whose parents did not hold lawful status or were in the United States in B Visitor status, for example).
Litigation involving the legality of the birthright citizenship EO is still at an early stage and there will undoubtedly be further developments involving this EO in the coming weeks and months. We will continue to monitor these closely and provide updates as events occur, especially if the preliminary injunctions are overturned.
