Liberal Orgs Seize On Opening Left By Supreme Court’s Nationwide Injunction Ruling

Left-wing advocacy groups wasted no time Friday capitalizing on what some conservatives worry is a loophole in the Supreme Court’s massive ruling reining in lower courts.

Less than two hours after the Supreme Court handed down its decision ending lower courts’ use of nationwide injunctions, groups challenging Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, including CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), filed an amended complaint seeking class action status for all illegal migrants who may give birth to a child in the United States.

“This is a huge win for the executive branch, though I fear that lower courts will simply certify broad classes of pregnant aliens,” South Texas College of Law Houston professor Josh Blackman told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “In that case, the outcome may be much the same.”

Citing Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent, they also requested an emergency restraining order preventing the executive order from being enforced against the class.

“Consistent with the Supreme Court’s instructions, Plaintiffs have now filed an amended complaint that expressly seeks relief on behalf of a putative class of those U.S.-born babies wrongfully deemed by the Executive Order to be ineligible for U.S. citizenship, along with their parents,” the plaintiffs’ motion states.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), partnering with other left-wing groups like the Democracy Defenders Fund and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, also filed a new class action lawsuit Friday challenging the executive order.

The Supreme Court’s ruling left two issues unresolved, which could “potentially threaten the practical significance of today’s decision: the availability of third-party standing and class certification,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his concurring opinion.

Alito noted the decision “will have very little value if district courts award relief to broadly defined classes” without following established rules.

Liberal legal analyst Norm Eisen also wrote on X that the ruling “doesn’t limit nationwide class actions which will be filed to achieve identical outcomes.”

Alito’s concurrence “shows that the Court is well aware of the problem and prepared to police those boundaries to shut down judicial activists,” JCN President Carrie Severino noted in a statement.

“Today’s decision is a victory for our constitutional separation of powers,” she said.

President Trump called the decision a “monumental victory” during a press conference following its release.

“Thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis,” he said.

Policies blocked by lower courts include efforts to end sanctuary city funding and stop taxpayer dollars from going towards transgender medical procedures for minors, Trump said.

During oral arguments in May, Solicitor General John Saur said judges have issued 40 universal injunctions against the administration since January. At least 199 rulings by lower court judges have temporarily blocked Trump administration policy initiatives as of June 26, according to The New York Times.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche noted the decision would free up Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys to work on other priorities.

“Our lawyers are working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to fight these injunctions,” he said during the press conference.

The decision will “allow cases to percolate among the lower courts before reaching the Supreme Court without completely tying the hands of the administration or subjecting federal officials to the prospect of being held in contempt of court if they enforce a policy in a far-off jurisdiction where that policy has not been challenged or enjoined,” John Malcolm, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the DCNF.

“Judges will now be limited to providing relief that is limited to the parties who are properly before them and will be required to follow the procedures (which are themselves reviewable) for certifying a nationwide class action if they wish to grant relief that extends beyond their jurisdiction,” Malcolm explained.

In her dissent, Sotomayor suggested migrants would be “well advised to file promptly class action suits and to request temporary injunctive relief.”

“Fortunately, in the rubble of its assault on equity jurisdiction, the majority leaves untouched one important tool to provide broad relief to individuals subject to lawless Government conduct: Rule 23(b)(2) class actions for injunctive relief,” she wrote. “That mechanism may provide some relief, but it is not a perfect substitute for a universal injunction.”

Alito, however, warned district courts not to view the Supreme Court’s ruling “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,’ and today’s decision will be of little more than minor academic interest,” he wrote.

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