On July 11, a federal judge in the New Hampshire district court issued a ruling that prevents implementation of the executive order Trump issued in January on birthright citizenship. Trump's order would have effectively ended birthright citizenship in some states while the legality of Trump’s order is being litigated (fought out) in the courts.

Birthright citizenship is written into the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It simply means everyone born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen. Trump’s order sought to deny this constitutional right to children of undocumented immigrants and some other non-citizens. Several federal courts had promptly issued nationwide injunctions blocking the order as blatantly unconstitutional. But in June the U.S. Supreme Court threw out those nationwide injunctions, and basically ruled that district courts could no longer issue any nationwide injunctions. The effect of this was twofold. One, it stripped lower courts of the right to act as a check on unconstitutional executive orders, a function that courts lower than the Supreme Court have been exercising for at least the past 60 years under both Republican and Democratic presidents. Two, it created a situation in which the 28 states ruled by fascists could—on the basis of Trump's executive order—deny citizenship to newborn babies of undocumented immigrants. (For fuller analysis, see “Fascist Supreme Court Puts Basic Rights in the Crosshairs and Takes a Sledgehammer to the Rule Of Law”)

This was set to go into effect the 27th of July. With the July 11 district court ruling, Trump's order will now be prevented from going into effect—unless the Supreme Court steps in to overrule it. 

The case in New Hampshire came from an ACLU-filed class action suit, which is a mechanism through which lawyers can sue on behalf of everyone in a large group of people (even millions) who are in essentially the same situation. So in this case, they sued on behalf of all the parents of babies that would be born as non-citizens under Trump’s order, and the babies themselves.

The judge excluded the parents from the suit but did rule in favor of the babies, and so birthright citizenship remains in effect, for the moment. This is obviously a very good thing, including because it reflects a continued willingness of some judges to stand up against blatant fascism in spite of a high level of pressure and intimidation being directed at them by the regime and its base—and by the fascist-dominated Supreme Court.

BUT, this is still a fragile, limited and temporary victory, for the basic and overarching reason that we are living under a fascist regime and that regime solidly dominates the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, as well as a number of district and appeals courts. Again and again, where rational application of the law and the constitution have come up against the agenda of the fascists, the Supreme Court has found a way to clear a path for the fascist agenda. 

With respect to this latest ruling, the Trump regime will almost certainly appeal this district court order to the appeals court and then to the Supreme Court, and it is very possible that it will be overturned and Trump’s order will go into effect, possibly in the very near future.

This week, the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian spoke specifically about this Supreme Court ruling. In social media message REVOLUTION #126, "More on why only the sustained determined action of decent people can be relied on to defeat and remove the Trump fascist regime," he said:

The fact is that the Supreme Court majority is determined to enable Trump to bulldoze over challenges to his fascist regime—regardless of legal precedent, basic logic, and the obvious meaning of things, including the Constitution. It is not clear at this point whether this majority is prepared to further expose its fascist nature by blatantly ruling against the clear language of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, but it is definitely possible that the Court could at some point (and perhaps soon) side with Trump’s whole assault on Birthright Citizenship, even as Trump’s actions are flagrantly in violation of the 14th Amendment.

One final note: If for any reason in the days to come this court ruling is overturned and Trump's fascist executive order gutting birthright citizenship goes into effect, this must be met with a massive no-business-as-usual response.