Judge Blocks Presidential Right To Outlast Constitution

A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to restrict birthright citizenship Wednesday, dealing a severe blow to the executive branch’s newly discovered constitutional power to issue the same unlawful policy repeatedly until the judiciary becomes too tired to read it. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman concluded that children born in the United States do not lose citizenship merely because the White House has reorganized its objections into fresh categories, including “alien enemies,” foreign officials and parents accused of treating childbirth as tourism. The ruling preserved the Fourteenth Amendment’s longstanding but increasingly controversial practice of meaning what it says.

Boardman’s decision relied heavily on precedent, an obscure legal doctrine under which earlier court rulings continue to exist after the president becomes annoyed with them. Administration officials had argued that Trump’s revised order was fundamentally different because it used narrower language, newer stationery and a signature applied with renewed constitutional confidence. “This judge is saying that because judges rejected something before, we cannot keep signing it with better words until everybody agrees,” Trump said. “That is not how the Constitution works, and nobody understands the Constitution better than me, including the people who wrote it.” Legal scholars said the argument could revolutionize judicial review by replacing constitutional analysis with the persistence normally associated with disputed cable bills.

The ruling may have broad consequences for presidential governance. If upheld, future administrations could be required to obey court decisions on the first, second or even third attempt, rather than treating the federal judiciary as a customer-service hotline where callers disconnect and redial until a more accommodating representative answers. White House advisers are expected to appeal while drafting a narrower order preserving birthright citizenship for every baby except those born on weekdays, near hospitals, to parents with accents, or under any circumstances later deemed suspicious by the president. The administration remains confident that the Fourteenth Amendment can be defeated through unlimited resubmission, because the Constitution automatically expires when the president demonstrates sufficient paperwork.

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