A federal judge on Wednesday issued a permanent injunction barring the Trump administration from enforcing most provisions of the president’s initial executive order on elections, including a requirement for voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering. U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper of Boston converted a preliminary injunction issued a year earlier into a lasting block on the measures.

Judge Casper dismissed the administration’s claim that a lawsuit filed by Democratic state attorneys general was premature because the executive order’s rules had not yet been implemented. She held that the Constitution grants authority over elections to states and Congress, not the president, and concluded that the executive order violated the separation of powers. In her ruling, Casper wrote that the Constitution “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections.”

The executive order included several changes, such as mandating proof of citizenship at voter registration, disallowing mail ballots that arrive after Election Day even if postmarked on time, and withholding federal funding from states that fail to comply. These provisions faced multiple legal challenges and have largely been blocked by courts. A separate federal judge in Washington, D.C., similarly halted efforts to include the citizenship proof requirement on the federal voter registration form and barred the Defense Department from imposing the same requirement on military voters.

The Trump administration and many allied Republicans have emphasized concerns about noncitizen voting, which critics and election experts say is exceedingly rare. Current federal voter registration forms already require voters to affirm their citizenship under penalty of law. Democratic officials, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, praised the ruling, calling the blocked order an unconstitutional attempt to undermine voting rights.

In response to judicial setbacks, Trump has sought legislative support for a citizenship proof mandate through the SAVE America Act, which passed the House but remains stalled in the Senate. This legislative push coincides with the president’s recent cancellation of his expected signature on a bipartisan housing bill, linking his support to progress on voting legislation.

Separately, in an immigration-related ruling, a federal judge in San Francisco issued a nationwide injunction against the Trump administration’s policy of making arrests at immigration courts—a practice that was reinstated after a prior policy barring such arrests. U.S. District Judge Casey Pitts found that the policy change lacked a reasoned explanation required under the Administrative Procedure Act and highlighted concerns that arrests deter immigrants from attending court hearings. The ruling follows a similar decision from May that applied only to New York. The Department of Homeland Security’s general counsel criticized the nationwide ruling as judicial overreach, arguing that taking into custody individuals ordered removed by immigration judges is a routine law enforcement practice.

These rulings represent significant judicial constraints on key elements of the Trump administration’s election and immigration enforcement policies. Meanwhile, the administration continues to face ongoing legal challenges to its more recent executive directives related to elections and voting procedures.