A federal judge agreed Thursday to issue a new nationwide block against President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.
The ruling from US District Judge Joseph Laplante is significant because the Supreme Court last month curbed the power of lower court judges to issue nationwide injunctions, while keeping intact the ability of plaintiffs to seek a widespread block of the order through class action lawsuits, which is what happened Thursday in New Hampshire.
Ruling from the bench, Laplante granted a request from immigration rights attorneys to certify a nationwide class that “will be comprised only of those deprived of citizenship” and issued a preliminary injunction indefinitely blocking Trump’s Day One order from being enforced against born and unborn babies who would be impacted by the policy.
…at least until a lower, appeals or supreme court overturns this one too.
Don’t worry, SCOTUS will let him do it.
Didn’t the SC just decide a couple weeks ago that only the SC is allowed to issue a nationwide injunction? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the judge here issued the injunction, but I also fail to see how this won’t just be summarily ignored or overruled by the SC.
They ruled that lower court judges only have authority to implement damages/relief for the people directly involved in the cases before them. So a single person challenging a law can only get relief for themselves, and a lower court judge cannot grant relief to the entire country.
This is a judge certifying the legal claims of a class, allowing a class action suit to grant relief to that entire class. In this case, the judge allowed the class to be defined as all people in the US who have been denied citizenship. The next step will be the government challenging the status of the class. The final step will be one of these cases coming directly before the Supreme Court to rule on the law itself instead of ruling on the process of the challenge to the law.
Yes, but with exceptions for class action and for administrative process act (apa) nationwide injunctions.
The idea being, if you’re a member of a class in multiple states, you should be included in the injunction for the class even if (as the majority stupidly concluded) you aren’t the person actually asking for the injunction.
On a side note, the podcast Main Justice does a good job explaining these nuances.
Edit: this doesn’t mean things are solid for the class certification. The government will no doubt appeal (potentially directly to SCOTUS) to say the class definition is too wide/invalid. It’s not normal to just call Roberts up and ask for a hearing without going through the various appellate courts first, but we’re not in normal anymore.
In the previous opinion, SCOTUS didn’t say that nationwide class actions or APA suits are legal. They just declined to rule on those, and I believe a justice said class actions might be viable substitutes in a concurring opinion.
My guess is we’re going to find out what they think about this class action pretty fast.
Yeah, not to mention Alito (IIRC) made some concurring option that basically said, don’t fucking try to make everything a class action we’ll be watching for that.
push em back push em back push em waaaay back!
Until tomorrow.
They realized that there will be moves to deport Trumps family if this went through I presume
Has anyone seen TACO’s birth certificate lately? Wasn’t his mother an immigrant?
Grandfather.
Mary Anne Trump (née MacLeod; Scottish Gaelic: Màiri Anna Nic Leòid Trump) May 10, 1912 – August 7, 2000) was a Scottish-American socialite and philanthropist, who was the wife of the real-estate developer Fred Trump and the mother of five children, including U.S. president Donald Trump.
__Mary Anne MacLeod Trump__
Born Màiri Anna MacLeod May 10, 1912 Tong, Lewis, Scotland
Died August 7, 2000 (aged 88) New Hyde Park, New York, U.S. Burial place Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery, New York City Citizenship British subject United States (from 1942) Spouse Fred Trump (m. 1936; died 1999)
Born a native Scottish Gaelic-speaker in the Outer Hebrides, MacLeod immigrated to the U.S. in 1930 and became a naturalized citizen in March 1942. She raised five children with her husband and lived in New York City.
—Wikipedia
Oh, good to know. So his whole family are full of immigrants, as is his wife…
…not to mention all those anchor babies!
