Jan. 20, 2025: Trump issues birthright citizenship order
Jan. 20-21, 2025: Several immigrants’ rights advocacy groups, states, cities, and individual pregnant women file federal lawsuits seeking to block implementation of the executive order
Jan. 23, 2025: Birthright citizenship order is put on hold nationwide for two weeks with a temporary restraining order from Senior U.S. District Judge John Coughenour in Washington state
Feb. 5, 2025: First universal injunction putting the birthright citizenship order on hold indefinitely across the country is issued by U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Maryland
Feb. 6, 2025: Second universal injunction is issued by Coughenour
Feb. 10, 2025: U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante issues a more limited injunction in
New Hampshire Indonesian Community v. Trump, which protects only the members of the groups involved in the suit
Feb. 13, 2025: Third universal injunction against the birthright citizenship order is issued by U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Massachusetts
Feb. 19, 2025: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit
declines to partially block Coughenour’s universal injunction
Feb. 28, 2025: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit
declines to partially block Boardman’s universal injunction
March 11, 2025: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit
declines to partially block Sorokin’s universal injunction
March 13, 2025: Trump administration comes to the Supreme Court requesting a partial block of the universal injunctions in
Trump v. CASA,
Trump v. Washington, and
Trump v. New Jersey, arguing that lower courts do not have the authority to issue nationwide injunctions
April 17, 2025: Supreme Court agrees to hear arguments on the injunctions and consolidates the three cases
May 15, 2025: Supreme Court
hears arguments on nationwide injunctions
June 27, 2025: Supreme Court releases opinion in
CASA, which repudiates the concept of universal injunctions but does not address the constitutionality of the birthright citizenship order. The opinion instructs the lower courts to narrow the existing injunctions, but leaves open the possibility of statewide injunctions for state challengers and nationwide injunctions in response to class action litigation
June 27, 2025: Within hours of the opinion’s release, the ACLU and several other civil rights organizations file a
class-action lawsuit on behalf of a proposed class of babies and parents who would be affected if Trump’s birthright citizenship order took effect, and the plaintiffs in
CASA file an
amended complaint seeking a class-wide injunction
July 10, 2025: Laplante, the district judge who issued a limited injunction on Feb. 10,
preliminarily certifies babies as a class in the new lawsuit and blocks the birthright citizenship order nationwide, but stays the new injunction for seven days to give the Trump administration time to appeal
July 27, 2025: In the absence of Laplante’s injunction, the birthright citizenship order would take effect on July 27 – 30 days after the Supreme Court’s opinion in
CASA – in states not covered by preexisting injunctions
