'Complete madness': Court blocks Trump's birthright citizenship policy with universal injunction by another name

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in office titled "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship." The order, set to go into effect on July 27, made it U.S. policy not to issue citizenship documents to a person whose mother was unlawfully in the country and whose father was neither an American citizen nor a permanent resident at the time of the person's birth.

A number of individuals, organizations, and states took the Trump administration to court over the order, obtaining universal injunctions against its implementation. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 27 that these injunctions "likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts."

Liberal litigants, desperate for an alternative, have since pursued universal injunctions under the guise of class-action lawsuits.

Joseph Laplante of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire is among the federal judges who is apparently happy to help torpedo the democratically elected president's agenda.

On Thursday, Laplante, a George W. Bush appointee, granted class action status to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the birthright citizenship order, certifying the babies of illegal aliens and temporary migrants as a class.

He then issued a preliminary injunction, temporarily shielding the supposed class from the order's enforcement.

After the Supreme Court ruling in CASA, immigration activists requested that Laplante certify a class "of all current and future children who are or will be denied United States citizenship by Executive Order No. 14160 ... and their parents."

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Laplante obliged the activists, although he slightly narrowed the certified class, enjoining the Trump administration from implementing the order with regard to:

all current and future persons who are born on or after February 20, 2025, where (1) that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) that person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.

"This ruling is a huge victory and will help protect the citizenship of all children born in the United States, as the Constitution intended," said Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, which argued the case.

This class-wide injunction has the same effect as a nationwide injunction.

'This needs to end.'

Laplante's decision comes just a week after the Obama judge overseeing a case concerning Trump's asylum ban certified all border-jumping asylum-seekers "who are now or will be present in the United States" as a protected class, then barred the administration from expelling members of the class — a ruling the government quickly appealed.

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Justice Samuel Alito cautioned district courts against such actions in his concurring opinion in CASA Inc., noting, "Rule 23 may permit the certification of nationwide classes in some discrete scenarios. But district courts should not view today's decision as an invitation to certify nationwide classes without scrupulous adherence to the rigors of Rule 23. Otherwise, the universal injunction will return from the grave under the guise of 'nationwide class relief.'"

A senior White House official speaking to Blaze News this week about liberal litigants' class-action strategy noted, "We're ready to go immediately. We're prepared for every outcome."

Laplante's ruling has already prompted some outrage among Republicans.

Rep. Mike Collins (Ga.) noted, "No one elected judges to make nationwide policy. This needs to end."

"This is absurdity and complete madness that has to end," wrote Sen. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.). "We cannot allow activist judges to halt the work of a president who is carrying out the work that the American people elected him to do."

Evidently fed up with the games played by activists on and off the bench, Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.) indicated he will introduce legislation next week to "end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants once and for all."

Laplante's ruling won't go into effect for seven days, affording the Trump administration time to appeal to the First Circuit Court of Appeals to stay the relief.

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