Overview

• Judge Joseph Laplante certified a nationwide class action and issued a preliminary injunction against the January 20 order that sought to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented or temporary-status immigrants.
• He described the loss of automatic citizenship as an “irreparable harm,” invoking the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee to all persons born on U.S. soil.
• The injunction includes a seven-day stay to give the Department of Justice time to appeal to the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
• The decision tests the Supreme Court’s June ruling that confines nationwide blocks of executive policies to class-action cases.
• Attorneys from the ACLU and allied immigrant rights groups represent the class and warn that rescinding birthright citizenship would create a vulnerable subclass of U.S.-born residents.