Last updated on May 14, 2026
A federal court in New Hampshire became, on July 10, among the latest to block President Donald J. Trump’s executive order that purports to strip U.S. citizenship from babies born to some immigrants.
Executive Order 14160 was issued Jan. 20. It states that, in President Trump’s opinion, the Fourteenth Amendment does not provide citizenship to “persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’” The Order mandates that “no department or agency of the United States government shall issue documents recognizing United States citizenship, or accept documents issued by State, local, or other governments or authorities purporting to recognize United States citizenship, to persons” unless “(1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”
The order by U.S. District Judge Joseph N. LaPlante granted both class certification to a group of five plaintiffs and awarded a preliminary injunction.
Judge LaPlante held that “the Executive Order likely contradicts the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and the century-old untouched precedent that interprets it.” He also ruled that Executive Order 14160 likely violates the Immigration and Nationality Act.
As for an “irreparable harm” prerequisite for the injunction, Judge LaPlante focused on the risk that children born in the U.S. would be deported. “The denial of citizenship to the plaintiffs’ members’ children would render the children either undocumented noncitizens or stateless entirely,” he wrote. “The children would risk deportation to countries they have never visited.”
The court also found that the public interest supports the injunction. “A continuation of the status quo during the pendency of this litigation will only shortly prolong the longstanding practice and policy of the United States government, while imposition of the Executive Order would impact the plaintiffs and similarly situated individuals and families in numerous ways, some of which – in the context of balancing equities and the public interest – are unnecessarily destabilizing and disruptive,” Judge LaPlante ruled.
The court modified the definition of a broad class that included parents of children that would be impacted by Executive Order 14160 proposed by the plaintiffs and settled on one that is instead focused on those children:
“All current and future persons who are born on or after February 20, 2025, where (1) that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) that person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”
This definition includes children born after Feb. 20, 2025 because that is the date on which Trump’s executive order was to take effect.
Department of Justice lawyers sought to block the injunction and class certification on numerous grounds. One of them was an argument that the Fourteenth Amendment language that refers to a person being “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. means that a child’s residence location would impact citizenship and, therefore, the proposed class members did not have common claims.
Judge LaPlante rejected that assertion, pointing out that the Supreme Court made clear more than 125 years ago that the “subject to the jurisdiction” language has nothing to do with a person’s residence location. “So domicile has no bearing on the common facts or law relevant to resolution of the suit,” he wrote.
The New Hampshire federal court had previously blocked Executive Order 14160 in a previous ruling, as did three other courts. But the Supreme Court, in a late June shadow docket decision called Trump v. CASA, Inc., held that nationwide injunctions without class certification are not available to plaintiffs.
An earlier decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire that enjoined enforcement of Executive Order 14160 is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
A federal appeals court based in California upheld on July 23 a preliminary injunction against Executive Order 14160 sought by the states of Arizona, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington. In that case Judge Ronald Gould, writing for a two-judge panel majority, wrote that Executive Order 14160 “is invalid because it contradicts the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment’s grant of citizenship to ‘all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’”
Judge Gould’s opinion carefully explored the history of the Fourteenth Amendment. He explained that the Supreme Court’s 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Arkprecluded any argument that citizenship of a person born in the U.S. depends on on their parents’ immigration status. “The Supreme Court canvassed English common law, early American decisions, and citizenship’s meaning to the Fourteenth Amendment’s drafters and then held that the Citizenship Clause stands for the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the dominion of the United States, notwithstanding alienage of the parents,” Judge Gould wrote.
Judge Gould’s opinion went on to discuss why the Trump administration’s argument that citizenship depends on the national citizenship of the parents of a child born in the U.S. is incorrect.
“In Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court directly addressed the meaning of the phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ The Court stated that ‘[t]he real object of’ the dual requirements of birth in U.S. territory and being subject to United States jurisdiction was, ‘to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words, (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government, unknown to the common law), the two classes of cases, [including] children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State, both of which . . . had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country.’”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit panel in the Washington et al. v. Trump case also rejected a federal government argument that the plaintiff states lacked standing.
About Author
