Judge Issues New Nationwide Injunction on Birthright Using SCOTUS Guidance
The judge “agreed the plaintiffs could proceed as a class, allowing him to issue a fresh judicial order blocking implementation of the Republican president’s policy nationally.”
U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante in New Hampshire issued a new nationwide injunction in the birthright case, drawing guidance from the Supreme Court’s recommendations for district courts.
The petitioners asked the court to grant the lawsuit class action status.
The lawyers used the SCOTUS decision to argue that courts could issue nationwide injunctions in class action lawsuits.
From USA Today:
U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante in Concord, New Hampshire, made the ruling July 10 after immigrant rights advocates implored him to grant class action status to a lawsuit they filed seeking to represent any babies whose citizenship status would be threatened by implementation of Trump’s directive.
Laplante agreed the plaintiffs could proceed as a class, allowing him to issue a fresh judicial order blocking implementation of the Republican president’s policy nationally.
“That’s irreparable harm, citizenship alone,” LaPlante said after the hour-long hearing. “It is the greatest privilege that exists in the world.”
LaPlante released his written ruling this evening. Regarding a national class, he wrote (I eliminated the citations for easier reading):
At no point in the briefs do the petitioners request a “nationwide class.” Petitioners request class certification for a harm that most likely affects class members residing in other states. So long as this court adheres to the requirements of Rule 23, this court does not hesitate to certify a class that may include members in all fifty states.
This court has rigorously applied Rule 23, carefully considering all of the respondents’ arguments. Respondents have made a generalized objection to the appropriateness of nationwide class actions, which are ubiquitous in federal court. Further, the respondents have failed to identify any conflicts between putative class members and current class members.
And, of course, LaPlante decided to issue the injunction because the petitioners are likely to succeed on the merits that Trump’s executive order violates the 14th Amendment, the executive order will cause irreparable harm without a preliminary injunction, and the injunction is in the public’s interest.
The judge also placed a seven-day stay on his ruling to give President Donald Trump’s administration time to appeal.
Professor Jacobson mentioned the loopholes that SCOTUS created for these justices when ruling on the birthright case.
Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, warned the district courts would try to get around the ruling:
I write separately to emphasize the majority’s guidance regarding how courts should tailor remedies specific to the parties. Courts must not distort “the rule that injunctive relief should be no more burdensome to the defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs.” Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U. S. 682, 702 (1979). Otherwise, they risk replicating the problems of universal injunctions under the guise of granting complete relief….
For good reason, the Court today puts an end to the “increasingly common” practice of federal courts issuing universal injunctions. Hawaii, 585 U. S., at 713 (THOMAS, J., concurring). The Court also makes clear that the completerelief principle provides a ceiling on federal courts’ authority, which must be applied alongside other “principles of equity” and our holding that universal injunctions are impermissible. Ante, at 26. Lower courts should carefully heed this Court’s guidance and cabin their grants of injunctive relief in light of historical equitable limits. If they cannot do so, this Court will continue to be “dutybound” to intervene. Hawaii, 585 U. S., at 721 (THOMAS, J., concurring).
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
look,, gop congress STILL wont do the correct job
same way they gave in to the dems who 100% voted against the BiBuBill and gave dems what they wanted
the judges only get to f djt/america b/c congress still refuses to (re)define who is a citizen etc
So they cooked up a bogus class action ruse to get around the restriction on nation-wide orders.
Which is exactly what Alito said they would do. In his concurring opinion, he took ACB to task for not addressing this GIANT loophole in the majority opinion. Less than 3-weeks later, his prescience proves to be eerily canny.
True. But is this judge smart enough to have figured it out on his own, or did someone have to point it out and explain it in monosyllabic words.
Didn’t this judge also already rule during the initial phase that the suit can’t be a class action? Or am I confusing that with a different case?
Not sure. I believe there are several of these challenges being litigated ATM.
MSCOTUSAMA Make the Supreme Court All Male Again.
I wouldn’t agree that the class is entirely bogus but I can’t see where everyone potentially impacted is similarly situated enough to comprise one single class. Consider the parentage of children born of
1. Both Parents are illegal aliens, unlawfully present in the USA
2. Both Parents arrived on a valid visa or grant of amnesty but children born after it expired so these Parents were, at time of birth, unlawfully present.
3. One parent on a visa/TPS/Amnesty claim that’s still valid at time of birth but other Parent is illegally present. (if the lawful status Parent is the Father has there been a DNA test to prove paternity to validate the claim??)
4. Neither Parent is permanent legal resident (green card) or a US Citizen but were here lawfully on a temporary basis.
That’s off the top of my head for four disparate classes of individuals potentially impacted who are dissimilar enough to require formation of separate classes.
The rub for me is ‘subject to the jurisdiction’. That can’t simply mean that a person might be arrested for a crime by the US Government. If that’s all it meant then the children born in the immediate post WWII era before restoring civil gov’t of Japan and portion of West Germany under US occupation would be US Citizens. Sounds ludicrous to claim US Citizenship simply b/c their Parents existed in a geographic area under the the suzerainty of the USA ..precisely b/c it is.ludicrous. See also the Insular Cases re Puerto Rico, American Samoa and other US possessions. Not to mention that the US Govt, all of it, Executive,. Congress and Judiciary believed a statute(s) was necessary to grant US.Citizenship to folks born in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of the early Insular cases.
IMO ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ actually means the person has an affirmative duty and responsibility TO the USA. Militia service, Jury duty, potential conscription to military/wartime service, called to serve as a member of the Sheriff’s Posse. IOW an affirmative duty of allegiance and potential to be called in service to the Nation, the State and the community.
You’re forgetting the words in question: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States”. Occupied Japan and Germany were not part of the United States; people born there were arguably under US jurisdiction, but they were definitely not in the US.
The same is true for unincorporated territories such as American Samoa, and originally Puerto Rico. They are/were not within the USA, so people born there, although certainly under US jurisdiction, are not entitled by this clause to citizenship. (In PR’s case it can be and is argued that by now it is effectively incorporated, but 100 years ago it wasn’t, so they needed a statute.)
That’s just not what the word means. You’re in Humpty Dumpty territory, making up definitions to suit your preferences.
Oh, and aliens are subject to conscription, when conscription exists, and almost all young male aliens who are in the USA are required to register for Selective Service.
Milhouse,
Firstly I stated militia service which is State level and service in the State militia is generally limited to Citizens and lawful permanent residents. I am using militia to mean the ‘unorganized’ militia v the ‘organized militia’ aka National Guard. Generally the unorganized militia is limited to able bodied, male US Citizens ages 17-44 and ‘those who have declared intent to become US Citizens’. Illegal aliens are excluded as are ALL females.
Since you brought it up…Selective Service registration is limited to males and to a narrow age range. That means my position holds true for EVERY female and all males arriving older than 26. A limited exception is providing the rule here.
Now tell us which aliens aliens can be called to serve in the Sheriff Posse or to service on a grand or petit Jury. None b/c illegal aliens are excluded and service is generally limited to US Citizens.
My opinion about the meaning of ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ is just as legally valid as anyone else’s b/c this hasn’t been hammered out in a SCOTUS ruling. The closest thing to it are the Insular Cases of the status of births in acquisitions of the Spanish American War and a couple other cases of the era outside those new possessions ALL of which said ‘subject to jurisdiction’ doesn’t mean simply threat of US Govt prosecution.
The most relevant case on birthright Citizenship is Wong. It held that Wong couldn’t be denied entry into the USA upon returning from China precisely b/c he:
1. Was born in the USA
2. Both Parents were in the USA lawfully, admitted as permanent residents v a temporary permissive status
IMO that seems to offer a good deal of clarity. If one is born in the USA to Parents who are in the USA on a permanent resident status aka green cards then one IS without question a US Citizen. However, those who don’t meet those narrow circumstances are not ‘automatically’ US Citizens (except IMO by over generous sufferance based on pity/empathy rather than statute or case precedent). Future cases will inform us.
You are the one on firm legal ground. Set aside that the 14th amendment was about clarifying the citizenship status of freed blacks to facilitate enforcement of federal civil rights laws. Illegal aliens are no more subject to the jurisdiction of the United States than foreign ambassadors; actually less because the ambassador is invited here while the illegal alien simply comes in via lawbreaking. The amendment’s history reveals its framers added the words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” to the originally proposed text to exclude the possibility that a foreigner’s child would be a US citizen simply by being born here. BTW the Wong decision that granted citizenship to the child of legal aliens was widely criticized at the time it was made as an illegitimate interpretation. But at least that mistake applied to LEGAL aliens. There should be no question that the child of an ILLEGAL alien retains the citizenship of its parents. ILLEGAL being the dead giveaway.
I’d go a bit further on than ‘illegal’ and argue that someone present in the USA TEMPORARILY whether illegal (subject to swift removal) or legally on a visa as a student, guest worker, tourist, claimant for asylum… anyone who’s Parents ain’t been granted PERMANENT legal permission to remain in the USA shouldn’t be granted US Citizenship automatically b/c their Parents ain’t ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ or IMO they not only don’t owe the normal duties/responsibilities owed by Permanent lawful residents/Citizens TO the USA, the State and Community they reside in they are largely prohibited from providing them with the very narrow exception of the very much unenforced registration requirement for Males to Selective Service.
FWIW I believe Wong was decided CORRECTLY…but on narrow grounds. His Parents were in the USA lawfully, they had been granted admission and legal permanent residence (or what passed for it at the time). Thus he was born in the USA to Parents who were lawful permanent aliens and as a result IS a US Citizen.
Everyone trying to make Wong into some more expansive ruling is generally getting incorrect. The proper view is that Wong tells us that ONLY those born in the USA to lawful permanent aliens become US Citizens automatically at birth. Others born to alien Parents who were temporarily present (every illegal alien is temp b/c they could be arrested and deported upon discovery) does not receive automatic US Citizenship.
Trump could end this stay and kill the suit in a single move: Amend/clarify his order so that those who already have birthright citizenship will remain citizens and that the order only applies to new cases after MM/DD/YYYY.
BOOM! The suit is moot, the parties have no standing (since they aren’t subject to the order), and the judge can go pound sand.
NOTE: I really don’t like this idea, but it would work.
The suit is moot
The injunction will malfunction
The birthplace case will go no place
The original order only applied to future births anyway. Anyone who already had “birthright citizenship” was grandfathered in.
Well then where the heck does this judge get off on even allowing the suit? If all current potential plaintiffs are US Citizens, then they have no standing and the suit should have been dismissed.
I assume it was the fetuses being certified as a class. Does a group of fetuses, each inside its mommy, meet the requirements of Rule 23?
Interesting because usually the Communists want to argue that a fetus inside of its mother is not a person and that therefore it’s okay to murder it.
I assume it’s babies born since the order. But I would argue that they have no standing until they need passports. So unless the parents are planning to take them to see their grandparents in the immediate future, they should have no standing. And in those few cases, the government could give them short-term passports as a courtesy, thus kicking the can down the road a few years.
I see that it’s not just about passports. It’s about benefits to which only citizens are eligible. The babies are entitled to those benefits from the day they’re born.
That could be fixed by Congress redefining eligibility for benefits, and saying that children are not eligible, but parents are eligible for their children. Thus if the parents are not citizens they can be ineligible even if the children are citizens.
He already did that. I thought that was cleverly done for precisely this purpose. But with enough searching they found plaintiffs with standing; I don’t know who they are, but I assume it would be babies born since the order was issued (represented by their parents).
I don’t think it’s proper to describe the latest judicial abuse of power as “drawing guidance from the Supreme Court’s recommendations for district courts.” It should be described as a not too thinly veiled misuse of the class action vehicle as means to undermine the S.Ct. ruling rejecting the abusive use universal injunctions.
Exactly. None of the rogue judges felt the need to grant class action status to any of the cases before them until now.
Hold on a second.
So you can represent a “class” where the affected members are not born yet?
According to Democrats they are not humans, just a clump of cells
And just like that, Democrats love the unborn baby.
We’re about to find out. Seems unlikely to me, but they’ll find one judge to try anything.
Where are you getting that they aren’t born yet? I haven’t looked into it, but I assume the plaintiff class are those born since the order.
I told you so.
“Professor Jacobson mentioned the loopholes SCOTUS handed these justices when ruling on the birthright case.
Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, warned the district courts would try to get around the ruling:”
The left is not going to stop until replacement theory is replacement accomplished.
We are at war. Prepare accordingly.
To the Left, the Constitution is indeed a suicide pact.
“U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante in New Hampshire”
Live Free or DEI.
SCOTUS seems very slow in getting a handle on the run-away 2A states.
Note: this is one driver of the “great migration”
We could easily make these anchor babies disappear by throwing them overboard.
If anchor babies are dual citizens wouldn’t they be anchors for the other country as well?
Then you could throw them over the border.
but by being anchors
they’ll just continue to weigh us down
Anchors Away!
Send them all to the largest Alaskan city, and they can be Anchorage anchor babies. They can clean the igloos inuits won’t and eat eskimo pies.
The simple solution is to deport any pregnant non-citizen,…if only Trump had the balls!
I’ve heard of some deportations, that of couse the left screams about, were pregnant women. So at least he’s not letting it stop him.
Again,,unless you are going to invoke ( widen) the RICO act
or the Son of Sam laws to say that the citizen ( cause if born here they are a citizen ,,even if parent(s)came in illegally
has benefited by an illegal act
we will be stuck
or
the citizen can stay and their illegal family has to leave
or forget it all…lock up the border….get rid of welfare and see who will work and who wont
I’m not so sure that automatic class action status (for Rule 23 B(1) or B(2) is necessarily a good idea for plaintiffs. It works both ways. If the circuit court reverses (or even if the circuit court agrees with class certification, but finds injunctive relief inappropriate) all member of the class are bound. So instead of just 1st Circuit class members losing, the class members lose everywhere. A person living in the 6th Circuit is barred from filing their own lawsuit. Since B(1) and B(2) don’t have real notice provisions (unlike B(3) class actions) and require only that the court provide “appropriate notice to the class” with no opportunity to opt out (again, unlike B(3) classes) this would seem to impact due process issues.
USA Today? Seriously? The judge does not have A Nationwide class before them, nor do they have the authority to act nationally. This will get slapped down.
I don’t think this flies. Fetuses are not persons under the law (abortion law makes that clear, and since Roe v. Wade there’s no federal recognition that fetuses beyond a certain length of term have any special rights).
Therefore they cannot be a class.
I mean, since the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
OK, enough speculation. Here are the plaintiffs and the class:
The certified class is “All current and future persons who are born on or after February 20, 2025 […] to whom the Executive Order denies citizenship.” The plaintiffs asked to include the parents in the class as well, but the judge refused this. The class is only the babies, current and future (i.e. as each baby is born, it joins the class).
Notwithstanding its other infirmities, Judge Laplante, in a one-page order that is devoid of analysis, “provisionally” certified a 23(b)(2) class. The word “provisional” or “provisionally” appears at least six times in the Order, including its title.
While the Ninth Circuit in particular has adopted this qualifier, in 2003, Rule 23(c)(1)(C) was “changed by deleting all references to ‘conditional’ certification.” As the Advisory Committee further explained, “The provision that a class certification ‘may be conditional’ is deleted. A court that is not satisfied that the requirements of Rule 23 have been met should refuse certification until they have been met.” This Order appears to be another judicial invention, contrary to the Rules.
Conditional and provisional are not the same thing.
Most of the cited cases come out of the Ninth Circuit. And, of course, “preliminary” relief is not the same thing as a “provisional class certification,” which is how the district court titled its Order. “Additionally, this court provisionally finds that Respondents have acted on grounds generally applicable to the class in its entirety ….” A “provisional” finding? Sounds like he’s not sure, but plowed ahead anyway. We shall see.
As he says, “Courts routinely grant provisional class certification for purposes of entering injunctive relief.” This is completely normal and standard.
Did he issue a memorandum opinion in addition to the order? If so, I have not seen it. I do not take what he writes on faith.
See the citations I quoted above.
LOL. An alien “married” to an illegal alien pumping out kids that they will immediately put up to be wards of the state, because they think that aliens are entitled to come to America just to spit out kids who will be considered American citizens for no reason other than people’s intentional misreading of the 14th amendment and a desire to tear America apart.
It seems that this alien Barbara does not have legal residency status, though the filing is sort of evasive on the issue, but any sort of legal status she might have had should have been immediately revoked from her the minute she married or starting living with the illegal alien.
As to the class construction., this is all a pathetic joke. As I wrote after the SCOTUS decision, these despicable, treasonous federal judges are just going to establish the trivial class for every law/order – the class of all people affected by that law/order. So, to them, every suit will be a class action. That is obviously ridiculous and illegal – and it serves to attempt to embed more communist ideas in American jurisprudence, as if we didn’t have more than enough of that sh*t, to start with …
You are the one who is intentionally misreading the 14th amendment.
And your scare quotes around “married” are simply disgusting and indefensible.
The filing is not at all evasive about Barbara’s status. “Her asylum application is pending.” That means she is here temporarily but legally.
LOL.
Are you going to feint?
The 14th clearly doesn’t allow for American citizenship to be distributed to every single human that is born on American soil. Children of diplomats were always known to not be American citizens, even if they were born on the Capitol steps, and the 14th doesn’t think it needs to explicitly state that for morons like you because it’s clearly covered under “subject to the jurisdiction”, as are illegals and tourists and the like.
The fact that you are SO OFFENDED that I would scare-quote “married” when it involves a couple of illegals who never seemed to care much about legality of anything and are just here pumping out kids to throw them on the taxpaying citizenry is pretty funny. Do you even read some of your own garbage before you post it?
The 14th clearly does allow for American citizenship to be distributed to every single human that is born on American soil, except children of diplomats and others who, like diplomats, are exempt from US jurisdiction, such as “Indians not taxed”.
In the senate debate, the amendment’s sponsor was very clear about this, in a sentence that is ironically routinely and deliberately misquoted by the liars on your side. He said it would exclude only children of foreigners who are diplomats, and would include absolutely everyone else. The amendment’s opponents were equally clear about this, and that is why they opposed it.
And your scare quotes around “married” are still disgusting and show you to be a lowlife scumbag. How dare you cast aspersions on their marriage? What gives you the right? As if aliens are not just as capable of marriage as citizens!
LOL.
The fact that they are despicable invaders who are working to destroy America (as you are, so often) gives me the right.
WTF do you care if I cast aspersions on the “marriage” of a couple of illegal invaders?? Lady, you are a real drama queen. You care so deeply for the alleged marriage of illegals spitting out babies by the dozen … it offends you so deeply that I would put “marriage” in quotes… What is wrong with you?
You have no right to call them any of those names. You know nothing about them. I’ll bet they are far better people than you are.
Barbara is about to be SOL b/c the grant of TPS for Honduras was revoked on 5 July and ends on 8 September.
Let’s also work to apply the requirements for registration of Selective Service and the punishments involved for the Husbands of these petitioners. Then lets go with your more expansive view of 14A application and also demand enforcing those same requirements to the Mothers based on equal protection grounds.
Note that this judge had not originally granted a universal injunction. Unlike three other judges, he had only granted an injunction “with respect to the petitioners, and with respect to any individual or entity in any other matter or instance within the jurisdiction of this court”.
So you can’t characterize him as “rogue”.
Trump needs to just ignore the judge because he’s breaking with the Supreme Court justice said. The judge needs to be impeached by Congress. If they were just impeach one of these idiots and the rest of them would back off.
So … this federal court claims that it must make a class because the individuals could not file court actions each on his own, since they number in the “thousands”, potentially … but these same federal courts said that illegal aliens who have no right to be in America are, somehow, entitled to individual court actions – each and every one of the millions and millions of them – to make determinations about things that are not even America’s responsibility or interest.
Millions and millions and millions of illegal alien invaders must – each and every one – have full blown court proceedings over total BS … while it is too much of a hardship to have a few thousand individuals file suits (when they are allegedly harmed, not before) and must all be put into a class and have some dirtbag district judge issue sweeping declarations about legislative and executive power, at his whim …
Yeah … very nice.
Class actions exist for convenience. No one is ever required to join a class.
Where the hell did I write that anyone was required to join the class? Can you read?
I made a case about the idiocy of this court claiming that thousands are too much to file individual claims while sister federal courts claim that millions are too few NOT to have each run individually through the system (for totally BS cases that shouldn’t even be brought, to start).
I never wrote anything about anyone being required to join the class, you blithering idiot.
Thousands of identical cases is enough to justify certifying a class. That does not mean any individual can be forced to join it.
In the case of habeas corpus, each individual in custody is entitled to a hearing at which a real judge must be satisfied that the government is entitled to keep the person in custody. That’s a fundamental and unalienable right, which can only be suspended by Congress, and even Congress can only do it in very limited circumstances, which do not apply now.
No can’t be forced to become an explicit member of the class. However, collateral estoppel may preclude them from seeking to litigate a similar claim that the class v defendant case previously concluded. IOW they are likely to have to live with the results.
“No one is ever required to join a class.” That’s just not true.
It is settled law that 23(b)(2) classes — the type of class that Judge Laplante “provisionally” certified — are “mandatory” classes, with “no opportunity for … (b)(2) class members to opt out.” Dukes, 564 U.S. at 362. If you are a (b)(2) class member, the court checks you in and you can never leave.
Same thing for (b)(1) classes: mandatory and non-opt-out.
So, essentially, SCOTUS gave these ‘judges’ a cheat sheet.
Trump needs to just ignore the judge because he’s breaking with the Supreme Court justice said. The judge needs to be impeached by Congress. If they were just impeach one of these idiots and the rest of them would back off.
“That’s irreparable harm, citizenship alone ,,, It is the greatest privilege that exists in the world.”
So the greatest privilege in the entire world is just given out like candy?
Does anyone not see the irony in a judge certifying a “class” consisting of unborn babies while that same political party believes that a fetus has no rights???