History
The lawsuit was filed on June 27, 2025, the same day as the Supreme Court ruled in the case Trump v. CASA that nationwide injunctions cannot be issued by a federal district court. [1] A class action as wide and comprehensive in scope as a nationwide injunction was seen as the best method to contest the ruling. The representative plaintiff, Barbara, a Honduran citizen, is only known by her first name because she fears for her life and that of her family. [2]
The lawsuit asks the U.S District Court for the District of New Hampshire to grant a class-wide injunction covering any person whose rights would be affected by the order. A similar class action case has been filed in Maryland as well. [3] [4]
On July 10, 2025, Judge Joseph Laplante issued a preliminary injunction indefinitely blocking the order from being enforced upon those who would be impacted by the policy. [5]
On December 5, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari before judgment to the case. [6]
Legal action
Seeing class actions as the best means to challenge the order, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit asking the U.S District Court for the District of New Hampshire to grant a class-wide injunction covering those who would not qualify for birthright citizenship under the executive order. [3] CASA de Maryland filed a similar motion as well. [4]
On July 10, 2025, Judge Joseph Laplante granted the ACLU's request, certified a class of born and unborn babies who would be deprived of their citizenship per the administration's policy, and issued a preliminary injunction blocking the order from being enforced upon that class. [5] [11] [12]
The brief of the petitioners, Donald J. Trump et al., was filed on January 20, 2026. Within 7 days, this was joined by 17 briefs by amicus curiae writing in support of the petitioners. [13] Those writing in support of Trump included New York University law professor Richard Epstein [14] , legal scholars Hans von Spakovsky and Ilan Wurman; Senators Ted Cruz and Eric Schmitt, Representatives Claudia Tenney, Chip Roy, and 27 other Republican members of Congress; Gun Owners of America, Citizens United, and the Conservative Legal Defense & Education Fund; [15] the governments of 23 U.S. states and territories with Republican governors; [16] and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, [17] an organization founded by white nationalist John Tanton in 1979 and classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.
After the class respondents filed their brief on February 19, 2026, they were joined in condemnation of the order by briefs from 42 amici curiae across the legal profession, civil rights groups, and others. Organizations writing in response included NAACP, the League of Women Voters and the National Urban League [18] and more than 200 other immigrants' rights, legal defense, civil rights, veterans' rights nonprofits and organizations, 19 labor unions, hundreds of legal scholars and professors in conjunction with scholars on migration, sociology, economics and political science. [19] Supporters also came from elected officials, including 217 Democratic and Republican members of Congress, [20] more than 130 state and local governments and dozens of current and former judges [21] , and over a dozen "former White House lawyers, senior government officials, federal judges, governors, and members of Congress who were appointed or nominated by Republican presidents, or who were elected as Republicans." [22]
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, libertarian economist Murray Rothbard, and industrialist and Republican donor Charles Koch, also submitted a February brief in support of the respondents, countering the petitioners' claim that "children of alien parents who are domiciled elsewhere, and are only temporarily present in the United States, owe primary allegiance to their parents’ home country" with the Court's determination in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that "the status of citizenship [is] to be fixed by the place of nativity, irrespective of parentage". The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also submitted a brief in support of Barbara and the class [23] , citing more than a dozen papal encyclicals which, in addition to asserting the order was "unconstitutional and violative of 8 U.S.C. §1401(a)", also condemned it as "immoral and contrary to the Catholic Church’s fundamental beliefs and teachings regarding the life and dignity of human persons", and invoked the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity:
Implicit in the notion of subsidiarity is social participation rooted in human dignity. Every member of a civil community, “either as an individual or in association with others, whether directly or through representation, contributes to the cultural, economic, political and social life of the civil community to which he belongs.” Through this lens, social participation is not a discretionary benefit conferred by the state, but a fundamental right inherent in the very fact of being human... Birthright citizenship is consonant with this view. By recognizing citizenship at the place of someone’s birth, the state justly acknowledges that a child is already embedded in a community—family, neighborhood, parish, and school—and empowers the child to participate in that community.
Six of the nine sitting justices - Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Sonia Sotomayor - are practicing Catholics.
Oral arguments are scheduled to take place on April 1, 2026. [24]
