❓WHAT HAPPENED: A federal judge has issued a nationwide injunction blocking President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order ending birthright citizenship, despite a Supreme Court ruling last month barring lower courts from granting such relief beyond their jurisdiction.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Normand Laplante, the United States Supreme Court, President Donald J. Trump, and the children of immigrants born on or after January 20, 2025.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The injunction was issued on Thursday, July 10, 2025.
💬KEY QUOTE: “The court hereby finds that Class Petitioners have demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of their claims; that Class Petitioners are likely to suffer irreparable harm if the order is not granted,” wrote Judge Laplante.
🎯IMPACT: Despite the Supreme Court ruling limiting nationwide injunctions, Judge Laplante utilized the “wiggle room” in the ruling, which allows for nationwide injunctive relief to be granted in class action lawsuits where a viable class is established and certified by the court.
U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Normand Laplante has issued a nationwide injunction blocking President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order ending birthright citizenship. While the U.S. Supreme Court ruled late last month that lower courts cannot—under most circumstances—grant injunctive relief beyond their jurisdiction, the high court left a degree of what Justice Samuel Alito called “wiggle room” for issuing nationwide injunctions as part of a class action lawsuit. This latter exception is how Judge Laplante, a George W. Bush appointee, made his ruling blocking the birthright citizenship order.
“After careful consideration of the parties’ submissions, the supporting declarations, the applicable law, and the filings and record in this case, the court GRANTS Petitioners’ Motion for a Classwide Preliminary Injunction,” Judge Laplante wrote in his ruling. He continued: “The court hereby finds that Class Petitioners have demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of their claims; that Class Petitioners are likely to suffer irreparable harm if the order is not granted; that the potential harm to the class petitioners if the order is not granted outweighs the potential harm to Respondents if the order is granted; and that the issuance of this order is in the public interest.”
Notably, the injunction only provides relief from President Trump’s directive ending birthright citizenship for the class established by the court, which Judge Laplante defines as the children of immigrants born after the January 20, 2025, Executive Order went into effect. The federal judge, based in New Hampshire, also issued a seven-day stay on his injunction to allow time for the Trump administration to appeal the decision.
While Judge Laplante appears to have circumvented the constraints placed on nationwide injunctions by the Supreme Court, the expediency with which he recognized a viable class for the purposes of class action could be seen as dubious. Typically, establishing and certifying a viable class can take a relatively long period of time, with most class action lawsuits in the United States taking, on average, two to three years to conclude.
The Trump administration is expected to appeal the injunction.
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