By: Lauren Lifke
A federal judge gave Justice Department lawyers until noon Tuesday to confirm, in writing, the administration’s plans for implementing an executive order on birthright citizenship after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted nationwide injunctions on the order Friday.
Justice Department attorney Brad Rosenberg said at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt on Monday that the Trump administration does not plan to begin acting on the order — which would deny citizenship to anyone born in the U.S. if neither parent was a citizen — for another four weeks. That’s the grace period set in the Supreme Court’s Friday ruling.
But U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman was looking for more than verbal assurances.
“I want to know if the government thinks that it can start removing children from the United States who are subject to the terms of the executive order, and who are not plaintiffs or members of the plaintiff’s organization,” Boardman said.
She ordered Rosenberg to submit in writing, by noon Tuesday, the government’s view of what it can do under the executive order. She also gave Rosenberg until next Monday to respond to the motion by immigrant parents and soon-to-be parents to turn the case into a class action lawsuit — the reason for Tuesday’s hearing.
The Supreme Court ruled Friday that Boardman and judges in two other districts in the U.S. could only block the executive order against plaintiffs that brought the respective cases, but said the district judges did not have the authority to impose nationwide injunctions.
But the ruling, as well as a concurring and a dissenting opinion, all said “that courts may award injunctive relief beyond the named parties when the case is brought as a class action.”
So attorneys for pregnant immigrants were back in court Monday, seeking to turn the case into a class action for “all children who have been born or will be born in the United States on or after February 19, 2025, who are designated by Executive Order 14,160 to be ineligible for birthright citizenship, and their parents.”
That class involves thousands of babies who have been born since Feb. 19, the day President Donald Trump’s executive order was scheduled to take effect, and thousands more who will be born while the case is decided, as well as their parents, the motion said.
A recent study by the Migration Policy Institute estimated that eliminating birthright citizenship could affect up to 250,000 babies a year.
The attorneys also asked Boardman to grant a preliminary injunction against Trump’s order immediately, to prevent any harm to their clients while the requst for class certification proceeded.
“Removal is not the only irreparable harm that we’re concerned about,” said William Powell, an attorney for the plaintiffs, during Monday’s hearing. “We’re obviously also concerned about other potential ways in which the order could be enforced to deprive newborns of potential rights.”
Potential members of the class are also documenting stress and anxiety, Powell said. He shared an anecdote about a plaintiff who is experiencing a more stressful and difficult pregnancy because she fears what will happen once her child is born.
“It is confusing to them exactly what these things mean,” Powell said. “We can’t really assure them the order is fully blocked, because it’s not.”
President Donald Trump issued the order on Jan. 20, his first day back in office. It claimed that citizenship does not automatically extend to everyone born in the U.S., excluding mothers who are here illegally or on a temporary visas unless the father has citizenship or is here with permanent legal resident status.
Rosenberg argued against class certification, which he said would be “prejudicial” to the government, and noted that the plaintiffs could have moved for class certification before Friday.
The case filed by CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project includes 15 women — some under pseudonyms because of their legal status — in nine states, including Maryland, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Washington. Some are in the U.S. without documentation, some are here on visas, many have asylum or other immigration applications pending in various stages.
This article was originally published by Maryland Matters, a part of States Newsroom.