Ruling halts executive order targeting children of undocumented and temporary immigrant parents, while raising legal questions about unborn children and potential future claims to human rights
A federal court in New Hampshire has issued a classwide preliminary injunction halting enforcement of a recent executive order by President Donald J. Trump that sought to restrict birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to certain noncitizen parents.
The ruling, issued on July 10, 2025, by U.S. District Judge Joseph N. Laplante, pauses the administration’s attempt to deny citizenship to children born on or after February 20, 2025, if their mothers were either unlawfully present or only temporarily lawfully present in the country and their fathers were neither U.S. citizens nor lawful permanent residents.
The court granted the motion on behalf of a provisionally certified class, finding that the plaintiffs had shown a likelihood of success on the merits, and that without an injunction, they and future class members would suffer irreparable harm. The injunction prevents enforcement by the Departments of Homeland Security, State, Agriculture, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The class certified by the court includes “all current and future persons who are born on or after February 20, 2025,” where the parentage conditions outlined in the executive order are met. The phrase “future persons” has drawn attention for its potential implications. While the injunction clearly limits legal protections to those “who are born,” it introduces a framework that some advocates say could support broader claims in the future.
The court did not attach legal rights to fetuses, embryos, or any individual prior to birth. The protections are deferred, contingent on birth, and do not apply to pregnancies that end in abortion or miscarriage. However, if final class certification occurs in a later stage of this case or in similar litigation, the definition of “future persons” may become a vehicle for seeking broader protections, including arguments that prenatal life deserves continuity of legal status or recognition as a rights-bearing human entity with the right to be born.
This legal construct may also influence future efforts to establish human rights protections for unborn children. Plaintiffs in future litigation could invoke the “future persons” language as a procedural bridge, claiming that the state or federal government must not interrupt the development of a rights-bearing person once that life has begun. Such claims would likely reference the concept of fetal personhood, a constitutional question raised but not resolved in Roe v. Wade. In that 1973 decision, the Supreme Court acknowledged that if fetal personhood were ever established under the Fourteenth Amendment, “the case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed” (Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)).
Although Roe was overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), Dobbs did not resolve whether unborn children are “persons” under the Constitution. It left that determination to the states, but it also left space for federal litigation that could explore the question further. Some legal theorists have argued that future class actions could be structured around the idea that unborn children, as “future persons,” are entitled to continuity of human rights that cannot be interrupted by abortion, medical intervention, or government policy.
The current injunction does not create such a right. It simply prevents enforcement of an executive order affecting children who, once born, would otherwise face the denial of U.S. citizenship. But the legal architecture it employs, particularly the formal recognition of a class of future individuals who will become rights-bearing at birth, may be cited in the future by plaintiffs seeking to create a longer continuum of human rights protection.
The government is expected to appeal. If the class is ultimately certified in final form, and especially if the “future persons” language is preserved, it could form the basis of future constitutional challenges centered on the status of unborn life and the timing of legal personhood.