Joseph Laplante, a federal district judge in New Hampshire, recently issued a preliminary injunction against President Trump's Executive Order 14160, which seeks to restrict birthright citizenship to children who have at least one U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident parent.
The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling.
"You can say it's a setback," says Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), "but it also may force the hand of the Supreme Court to look at this once and for all and make a determination what the intent of the 14th Amendment was. That needs to happen, and the sooner, the better."
FAIR believes the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is there for a very good reason.
"They don't engage in rhetorical flourishes when they write constitutional amendments," Mehlman says of the writers.
He adds, however, that "it's impossible to predict how the Court is going to rule."
The preliminary injunction is part of a nationwide class action lawsuit that is exempt from the recent Supreme Court ruling prohibiting nationwide injunctions by district judges.
