A federal judge on Wednesday ordered a second nationwide pause on President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship for anyone born in the U.S. to someone in the country illegally, calling citizenship a “most precious right.” U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman said no court in the country has endorsed the Trump administration’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment, the Associated Press reports. “This court will not be the first,” she said. She added: “Citizenship is a most precious right, expressly granted by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.” Boardman said citizenship is a “national concern that demands a uniform policy,” adding that “only a nationwide injunction will provide complete relief to the plaintiffs.” After reading her ruling from the bench, the judge asked a government attorney if they would be appealing her decision. The attorney said he didn’t have the authority to immediately take a position on that question. Trump’s inauguration week order had already been on temporary hold nationally because of a separate suit brought by four states in Washington state, where a judge called the order “blatantly unconstitutional.”
That temporary hold is set to expire on Thursday. Boardman’s preliminary injunction puts the executive order on hold until the merits of the case are resolved, barring a successful appeal by the Trump administration. In total, 22 states, as well as other organizations, have sued to try to stop the executive action. Further hearings, similar to the one Boardman conducted on Wednesday, are due later this week in other birthright citizenship cases. Boardman, nominated by former President Joe Biden, agreed to the preliminary injunction after a hearing federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland. Immigrant-rights advocacy groups CASA and Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, and a handful of expectant mothers brought the suit before Boardman. Plaintiffs’ attorney Joseph Mead said many parents who would be impacted by Trump’s executive order have lived in the U.S. for months or even years. “They’re not temporary visitors,” he told the judge. “They have made America their home.” At the heart of the lawsuits is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision that determined Scott, a slave, wasn’t a citizen. The Trump administration asserts that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.