A New Hampshire federal judge announced Thursday that he will certify a class action lawsuit against the Trump Administration over the President’s executive order redefining birthright citizenship.
Judge Joseph LaPlante also issued a preliminary injunction temporarily halting the implementation of the order indefinitely while the case is pending.
This comes on the heels of a ruling from the Untied States Supreme Court that reigned in the ability of federal judges to issue nationwide, or universal, injunctions.
That ruling marked a victory for the Trump Administration, which has frequently raised concerns about individual judges making decisions that impact the entire country.
According to the Associated Press, the order issued by Judge LaPlante will include a seven-day stay to allow the parties time to appeal.
This new case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of New Hampshire, ACLU of Maine, ACLU of Massachusetts, Legal Defense Fund, Asian Law Caucus, and Democracy Defenders Fund on behalf of those who would be directly impacted by the executive order and their parents.
LaPlante, however, narrowed the scope of the class action lawsuit only to impacted individuals born on or after February 20 of this year, making it so that their parents were no longer included.
The judge issued his ruling following an hour-long hearing held Thursday morning.
“The preliminary injunction is just not a close call to the court,” Laplante reportedly said during this hearing. “The deprivation of US citizenship and an abrupt change of policy that was longstanding…that’s irreparable harm.”
Although the Supreme Court has barred federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions, the Justices explained that class action lawsuits, as opposed to universal injunctions, are the appropriate means by which to challenge federal policies on a broader scale.
“I’m the judge who wasn’t comfortable with issuing a nationwide injunction. Class action is different,” the judge reportedly said at one point during Thursday’s hearing. “The Supreme Court suggested class action is a better option.”
[RELATED: SCOTUS Reins In Federal Judges on Nationwide Injunctions, Yet to Rule on Birthright Citizenship]
The controversy at the heart of this case centers on an executive order signed by President Donald Trump (R) earlier this year.
“That’s a big one,” President Donald Trump (R) said as an aide handed him the executive order earlier this year.
“We’re the only country in the world that does this,” said President Trump. “It’s ridiculous.”
Whether or not the children of illegal aliens, visa-holders, and those with pending asylum claims will automatically become U.S. citizens will depend on how courts — potentially including the U.S. Supreme Court — ultimately interpret the Fourteenth Amendment.
Ratified in 1868, this Amendment states: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
Currently, the United States grants full citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil regardless of whether their parents are in the country legally or illegally.
[RELATED: Maine AG, ACLU Sue Trump Admin Over Birthright Citizenship for Illegal Aliens]
Incorporated into the Constitution in the wake of the Civil War, this clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to ensure that all formerly enslaved people would be granted citizenship.
By ratifying this amendment, the nation overturned the infamous 1857 Supreme Court ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford wherein the Justices decided that enslaved people were not United States citizens.
A few decades after the amendment was officially added to the Constitution, it came before the Court in the case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, wherein the citizenship status Wong Kim Ark — who was born in the San Fransisco to parents who were Chinese citizens living and working in America — was called into question.
Under the Naturalization Act of 1802, Ark’s parents were ineligible to become naturalized citizens, as Congress continued to limit eligibility for naturalization to “free white persons
.”
The 6-2 majority opinion in the Wong Kim Ark case, authored by Justice Horace Gray, established the principle of jus soli, or right of soil.
In 1940, Congress passed a law that included language mirroring that of the Fourteenth Amendment, stating that “person[s] born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” “shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.”
President Trump’s Executive Order — titled Protecting the Meaning and value of American Citizenship — states that “the privilege of United States citizenship is a priceless and profound gift.”
The order establishes that “it is the policy of the United States” that citizenship shall not be granted to those whose “mother was unlawfully present in the United States and [whose] father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”
Birthright citizenship would also not be extended to those whose “mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and [whose] father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”
This clause of the Executive Order would likely impact the ability of children born to those with pending asylum claims, as well as those who are in the United States on temporary work, student or tourist visas, to obtain birthright citizenship.
These restrictions would be applicable to children born starting thirty days after the order was signed.
When Trump signed the order in January, he told reporters that he believes the nation’s current policy on birthright citizenship is “just absolutely ridiculous,” adding that he feels his Administration has “very good [legal] ground” to change this interpretation.
While ACLU lawyers have argued that the President’s executive order will cause serious harm to those who have their citizenship called into question, the Trump Administration has said that the country’s current policy is based on years of misinterpretation and has negatively impacted the nation.
“If the Order is left in place,” the ACLU lawyers wrote in this case, “those children will face numerous obstacles to life in the United States, including stigma and potential statelessness; loss of their right to vote, serve on federal juries and in many elected offices, and work in various federal jobs; ineligibility for various federal programs; and potential arrest, detention, and deportation to countries they may have never even seen.”
“Prior misimpressions of the citizenship clause have created a perverse incentive for illegal immigration that has negatively impacted this country’s sovereignty, national security, and economic stability,” government lawyers wrote in the New Hampshire case. “The Constitution does not harbor a windfall clause granting American citizenship to … the children of those who have circumvented (or outright defied) federal immigration laws.”
The Trump Administration is expected to appeal LaPlante’s injunction, likely putting the case on a fast track to the Supreme Court.
