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PaperclipPerfector  11d ago (text post)   29225 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025

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Trump's executive order purporting to deny United States Citizens their birthright citizenship is, yet again, enjoined nationwide. Judge Joseph Laplante issued an order certifying a nationwide class under FRCP 23(b)(2) and enjoining enforcement of the executive order as to that class.

The nationwide class consists of:

All current and future persons who are born on or after February 20, 2025, where (1) that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) that person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.

Essentially, every child who would be denied citizenship by the executive order. Notably the plaintiffs in this case asked parents be included in the class but the judge found that would create issues of commonality. All the children share the same facts and harm (exclusion from United States citizenship) but the way that harm manifests to parents may be diverse. Also answers some questions I had about whether class litigation can include future class members (it can).

This is probably going to be the template for nationwide relief post-CASA.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm interested in the fact that the judge has defined a class where, due to the linear nature of time, the majority of the members of the class do not actually exist.

Is there any historic precedent for that kind of class? It seems like there's an issue if standing if you don't exist yet. Is this some sort of legal fiction, like when the government sues a barrel of vinegar?

Quote from the opinion:

Respondents object to the inclusion of “future persons” in the class, arguing that “‘future persons’—i.e., persons who have not yet been conceived—lack either standing or capacity to sue”. As petitioners note, the fact that a policy will continue to harm future class members is relevant to numerosity.

Including future class members is no bar to class certification. Although the future class member children in this case have yet to be born, as soon as they are born, they will join the class and their claims will be ripe. In other cases involving children, the fact that some of the potential future class members had not yet been born was not a bar to certification.

Finally, more children will continuously populate the class as they are born, and, where “an influx of future members will continue to populate the class... at indeterminate points in the future, joinder becomes not merely impracticable but effectively impossible”.

I’m surprised there haven’t been climate change or other environmental lawsuits citing descendants as part of the class. Or maybe there have been?

It's a lot easier to win environmental lawsuits if you bring them as administrative law cases saying that not enough people were consulted, so people do that.

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