Judges continue to stonewall Trump policies even after US Supreme Court injunction restraints

 

Judges continue to stonewall Trump policies even after US Supreme Court injunction restraints

President Donald Trump hailed the U.S. Supreme Court's June 27 ruling restricting the power of federal judges to employ nationwide injunctions to halt his policies as "a monumental victory," but his legal triumph might be less clear-cut than it initially seemed.

The Supreme Court ruling clipped the power of judges to grant so-called universal injunctions that are able to prevent the government from implementing a policy against anybody, anywhere throughout the whole country.

The Trump administration indicated it would act quickly to appeal such injunctions. But the court's 6-3 conservative majority ruling included exceptions whereby federal judges could still issue broad rulings blocking significant aspects of the Republican president's agenda.

In the brief period following the ruling, lower-court judges have already prevented Trump's asylum ban along the U.S.-Mexico border, barred his administration from halting temporary deportation protections for Haitian migrants and compelled the government to reinstate health websites that were found to contravene Trump's bids to quash "gender ideology."

One of the largest challenges to the effect of the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. CASA will occur on Thursday, when a federal judge in New Hampshire will decide whether to enjoin Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship from going into effect nationwide on July 27.

That executive order was at the center of the Supreme Court's decision, which did not decide on the policy's legality, but maintained that judges probably have no power to issue universal injunctions and instructed three judges to revisit orders halting the policy across the country.

Released on his first day back in office in January, the order instructs federal agencies to deny recognition of the citizenship of children born in the United States to parents who lack at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident.

CLASS STATUS

The plaintiffs of the New Hampshire birthright citizenship case are hoping to grasp one of the principal exceptions to the Supreme Court's decision. According to them, it enables judges to keep on rejecting Trump policies on a country-wide level in class action lawsuits.

The suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and others just hours after the Supreme Court made its decision, is asking class action status on behalf of infants who would be covered by Trump's executive order and their families.

The plaintiffs are requesting U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante, who before that had issued a more limited injunction barring Trump's directive, to take it a step further this time by permitting the plaintiffs to bring suit on behalf of a nationwide class and issuing an order preventing Trump's ban from being applied to members of the class.

At least one other judge has already used this template.

On July 2, Washington U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled that Trump's disavowal of asylum to border-crossing migrants was beyond the president's powers.

He subsequently certified a class encompassing everybody covered by the presidential proclamation on asylum and issued an injunction to safeguard the class -- essentially a nationwide injunction.

The ruling was appealed by the administration, which was denounced as a judge's effort to "circumvent" the Supreme Court's decision by acknowledging "a protected worldwide 'class' worthy of admission into the United States."

"I believe there are going to be a lot more class actions," declared Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the ACLU, which brought the case regarding asylum.

Class actions have to adhere to so-called Rule 23, under which the plaintiffs have to satisfy a number of requirements such as establishing that the potential class members were harmed in the same way. Conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito cautioned lower courts not to certify national classes without "scrupulous adherence to the rigors of Rule 23.

The process of certifying a class can take months at times. A senior White House official said the administration will be closely monitoring class certification rulings and will move aggressively to contest them in an effort to avoid abuse of the system.

The government contends the named class plaintiffs in the New Hampshire lawsuit are too disparate from each other to be able to go forward as a class action. They consist of an asylum seeker and a student visa holder.

Judges have employed other legal instruments to stop Trump administration policies on a national scale, such as by holding the government has not conformed with administrative law, another exception to the Supreme Court's prohibition on injunctions.

Judges did this in two different decisions last week stopping the Trump administration from terminating a program allowing half a million Haitians to temporarily remain and work in the United States, and mandating that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reinstate government websites that had been cleaned early in Trump's presidency after an executive order.

Concurrently, on July 2, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy at a hearing in Boston left open the potential that he might on similar grounds continue to prevent the U.S. Department of Defense from drastically reducing federal research funding given to universities across the nation.

"There's a strong argument that CASA doesn't apply at all," Murphy said.

Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware and Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Bill Berkrot