A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a contentious executive order ending birthright citizenship after certifying a lawsuit as a class action, effectively the only way he could impose such a far-reaching limit after a Supreme Court ruling last month.
Ruling from the bench, Judge Joseph N. Laplante of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire said his decision applied nationwide to babies who would have been subject to the executive order, which included the children of undocumented parents and those born to academics in the United States on student visas, on or after Feb. 20.
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The judge, an appointee of President George W. Bush, issued a written order formalizing the ruling on Thursday morning. He also paused his order for seven days, allowing time for an appeal.
The lawsuit, brought by the A.C.L.U., was filed hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling last month limiting the ability of lower court judges to issue nationwide injunctions. The case tested the new landscape after the Supreme Court decision and made use of what appeared to be the only remaining practical and efficient way for district court judges to freeze the implementation of policies they found unlawful.
Class actions, which involve a population of similarly situated people, were seen as the workaround. Before the Supreme Court’s decision, nationwide or “universal” injunctions were the main tool judges could use to halt executive branch policies.
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The A.C.L.U.’s lawsuit had proposed that all children born in the United States after Feb. 20 and their parents constituted a class. It warned that under the terms of Mr. Trump’s order, people born to parents in the country unlawfully risked being rendered “effectively stateless.”
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