Latest news with #1stCircuit
Fox News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
ACLU sues Trump over birthright order as Supreme Court clears path for it to take effect
Hours after the Supreme Court delivered the Trump administration a major victory Friday by ruling lower courts may issue nationwide injunctions only in limited instances, a coalition of liberal legal groups filed a sweeping new class-action lawsuit in New Hampshire federal court. It takes aim at President Donald Trump's January executive order that redefines who qualifies for U.S. citizenship at birth. While the justices' 6-3 ruling leaves open the question of how the ruling will apply to the birthright citizenship order at the heart of the case, Friday's lawsuit accuses the administration of violating the Constitution by denying citizenship to children born on U.S. soil if their mothers are either unlawfully present or temporarily in the country and their fathers are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of New Hampshire, ACLU of Maine, ACLU of Massachusetts, Legal Defense Fund, Asian Law Caucus and Democracy Defenders Fund. It seeks to represent a proposed class of children born under the terms of the executive order and their parents. It is not the first legal challenge to the policy. The same group filed a separate suit in January 2025 in the same court on behalf of advocacy organizations with members expecting children who would be denied citizenship under the order. That case led to a ruling protecting members of those groups and is now pending before the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, with oral arguments scheduled for Aug. 1. Friday's SCOTUS ruling states that lower courts can no longer block federal policies nationwide unless it's absolutely necessary to give full relief to the people suing. The decision does not say whether Trump's birthright citizenship order is legal, but it means the order could take effect in parts of the country while legal challenges continue. The court gave lower courts 30 days to review their existing rulings. "The applications do not raise — and thus we do not address — the question whether the Executive Order violates the Citizenship Clause or Nationality Act," Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, writing for the majority. "The issue before us is one of remedy: whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts have equitable authority to issue universal injunctions." "A universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power," she added. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent, suggested plaintiffs could pursue class actions as an alternative. "Nevertheless, the parents of children covered by the Citizenship Order would be well advised to file promptly class action suits and to request temporary injunctive relief for the putative class pending class certification," Sotomayor wrote. "For suits challenging policies as blatantly unlawful and harmful as the Citizenship Order, moreover, lower courts would be wise to act swiftly on such requests for relief and to adjudicate the cases as quickly as they can so as to enable this Court's prompt review." The ACLU lawsuit calls birthright citizenship "America's most fundamental promise" and claims the executive order threatens to create "a permanent, multigenerational subclass" of children denied legal recognition. "The Supreme Court's decision did not remotely suggest otherwise, and we are fighting to make sure President Trump cannot trample on the citizenship rights of a single child," said Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project and lead attorney in the case. "This executive order directly opposes our Constitution, values, and history," added Devon Chaffee, executive director of the ACLU of New Hampshire. "No politician can ever decide who among those born in our country is worthy of citizenship." The lawsuit cites the 14th Amendment, which provides that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens." It also references the Supreme Court's 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which affirmed birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children of noncitizens. The plaintiffs include individuals from Honduras, Taiwan and Brazil. One mother in New Hampshire is expecting her fourth child and fears the baby will be denied citizenship despite being born in the U.S. The case is Barbara et al. v. Trump et al., No. 1:25-cv-244, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire. "Trump's executive order directly opposes our Constitution, values, and history and it would create a permanent, multigenerational subclass of people born in the U.S. but who are denied full rights," said SangYeob Kim of the ACLU of New Hampshire in January. "Today's historic decision delivers a decisive rejection of the weaponized lawfare President Trump has endured from leftist activist judges who attempted to deny the president his constitutional authority," White House spokesperson Liz Huston wrote to Fox News Digital. "President Trump will continue to implement his America First agenda, and the Trump Administration looks forward to litigating the merits of the birthright citizenship issue to ensure we secure our borders and Make America Safe Again."
CNN
06-06-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Trump urges Supreme Court to allow mass layoffs at Education Department
President Donald Trump's administration urged the Supreme Court on Friday to allow officials to gut the Department of Education, a key priority for the president that has been stymied by a series of lower court decisions. The emergency appeal landed at the high court days after the Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reverse a lower court order that halted mass firings at the department, which was created during the Carter administration. Trump has filed more than a dozen emergency appeals at the Supreme Court since he returned to office in January. In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the administration argues its effort at the Education Department involves 'internal management decisions' and 'eliminating discretionary functions that, in the administration's view, are better left to the states.' Though Trump has repeatedly vowed to get rid of the department, the administration's lawyers told the Supreme Court in its filing on Friday that 'the government has been crystal clear in acknowledging that only Congress can eliminate the Department of Education.' Trump ordered mass layoffs at the department earlier this year. The problem for the administration is that the department was created by Congress, and so lower courts have ruled it cannot be unilaterally unwound by the White House. At the same time, the administration does have the power to reduce the size of federal agencies, so long as they can continue to carry out their legal requirements. And that, the Department of Justice told the Supreme Court, is precisely what the administration is attempting to do. 'The Department remains committed to implementing its statutorily mandated functions,' the Department of Justice told the Supreme Court in the appeal. The Education Department is tasked with distributing federal aid to schools, managing federal aid for college students and ensuring compliance with civil rights laws – including ensuring schools accommodate students with disabilities. Most public-school policies are a function of state government. US District Judge Myong Joun, nominated to the bench by former President Joe Biden, indefinitely halted Trump's plans to dismantle the agency and ordered the administration to reinstate employees who had been fired en masse. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by a teachers' union, school districts, states and education groups. Noting that the department 'cannot be shut down without Congress's approval,' Joun said Trump's planned layoffs 'will likely cripple' it. 'The record abundantly reveals that defendants' true intention is to effectively dismantle the department without an authorizing statute,' he wrote. The Supreme Court is already considering a related emergency case about whether Trump can order mass firings and reorganizations in other federal departments. 'What is at stake in this case,' the 1st Circuit wrote, 'was whether a nearly half-century-old cabinet department would be permitted to carry out its statutorily assigned functions or prevented from doing so by a mass termination of employees aimed at implementing the effective closure of that department.' Trump's order would have affected about half of the department's employees, according to court records.
CNN
04-06-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Federal appeals court refuses to lift ruling halting mass layoffs at Department of Education
A federal appeals court declined on Wednesday to lift a judge's ruling that blocked the Trump administration from effectively shutting down the Department of Education. The unanimous decision from the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals is another significant legal setback for President Donald Trump, whose efforts to rapidly shrink the federal government – including through dismantling entire agencies – have been tied up in numerous court challenges. Cutting the Department of Education has been of particular interest to Trump in his second term. Earlier this year, he moved ahead with mass layoffs at the agency, which is tasked with distributing federal aid to schools, managing federal aid for college students and ensuring compliance with civil rights laws. The administration, 1st Circuit Chief Judge David Barron wrote for the panel, has not 'shown that the public's interest lies in permitting a major federal department to be unlawfully disabled from performing its statutorily assigned functions.' The court also said that the administration had not demonstrated that it was likely to ultimately win in the case, with Barron writing that Justice Department attorneys had not put forth evidence showing how the widespread layoffs at the department would not prevent it from carrying out its core functions. Last month, US District Judge Myong Joun of the federal court in Boston indefinitely halted Trump's plans to dismantle the agency and ordered the administration to reinstate employees who had been fired en masse. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by a teachers' union, school districts, states and education groups. Noting that the department 'cannot be shut down without Congress's approval,' Joun, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, said that the planned layoffs at the agency 'will likely cripple' it. 'The record abundantly reveals that Defendants' true intention is to effectively dismantle the Department without an authorizing statute,' he wrote in the 88-page ruling. Attorneys for the Department of Justice quickly asked the Boston-based appeals court to pause Joun's ruling while they appealed it, writing in court papers that it 'represents an extraordinary incursion on the Executive Branch's authority to manage its workforce.' 'Beyond that, it requires the government to indefinitely retain and pay employees whose services it no longer requires, and the government cannot recoup those salaries if it prevails on appeal,' the DOJ attorneys wrote.
Reuters
27-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
US appeals court rejects challenge to federal marijuana ban
BOSTON, May 27 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday rejected arguments by several Massachusetts cannabis businesses that the federal prohibition on marijuana could no longer be deemed constitutional, as the U.S. Supreme Court held two decades ago. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, opens new tab that changes in how marijuana is regulated and sold in the decades since the Supreme Court upheld the law in 2005 did not mean the federal ban was no longer constitutional. Lawyers for the cannabis businesses including prominent litigator David Boies had argued that Congress has abandoned its goal of controlling all marijuana in interstate commerce, which they said was a key predicate of the Supreme Court's holding. In that case, Gonzales v. Raich, the high court held that under the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause, Congress had the authority to criminalize the possession and use of marijuana even in states that permit its use for medical purposes as it did in the Controlled Substances Act. Today, 38 states, including Massachusetts, have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use, and under the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendments that have been included in annual appropriation bills since 2014, the Justice Department may not spend funds to interfere with state medical marijuana laws. Boies during arguments in December also pointed to Congress' decision in 2010 to permit medical marijuana in the District of Columbia. But Chief U.S. Circuit Judge David Barron, writing for a three-judge panel, said that the so-called appropriations rider was of "limited scope" and did not apply to the cultivation and distribution of marijuana for non-medical purposes. "After all, notwithstanding those appropriation riders, the CSA remains fully intact as to the regulation of the commercial activity involving marijuana for non-medical purposes, which is the activity in which the appellants, by their own account, are engaged," he wrote. He said that a ruling for the plaintiffs would result in a nationwide exemption to the Controlled Substances Act's comprehensive drug regulatory regime that was far broader than the one the Supreme Court rejected in the 2005 case, which concerned only medicinal marijuana sales, not recreational uses. Jonathan Schiller, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at Boies Schiller Flexner, said it "is fair to assume that we shall seek Supreme Court review." The lawsuit was filed in 2023 by Massachusetts retailer Canna Provisions, marijuana delivery business owner Gyasi Sellers, grower Wiseacre Farm and publicly traded multistate operator Verano Holdings ( opens new tab. U.S. District Judge Mark Mastroianni, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, last year rejected their arguments, saying only the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn its 2005 ruling upholding the law. The plaintiffs say that holding has been undercut by subsequent developments. In 2021, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the 2005 ruling's reasoning may no longer apply and that the ban "may no longer be necessary or proper", in response to the court's decision not to hear a different case. The Justice Department during the last year of Democratic President Joe Biden's tenure moved to make marijuana use a less serious federal crime by reclassifying it as a Schedule III drug instead of Schedule I, which is reserved for drugs with a high potential for abuse. The fate of that proposal remains uncertain. Republican President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Terry Cole, has declined to commit to rescheduling cannabis, saying only that he would "give the matter careful consideration." The case is Canna Provisions Inc v Garland, 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 24-1628. For the plaintiffs: David Boies and Jonathan Schiller of Boies Schiller Flexner For the U.S.: Daniel Aguilar of the U.S. Department of Justice Read more: US appeals court skeptical of challenge to federal marijuana ban Cannabis businesses lose court challenge to US marijuana ban
Boston Globe
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Justices allow Middleborough school to bar student from wearing ‘Only Two Genders' shirt
The opinion illustrated a split among the members of the court's six-member conservative supermajority, said Justin Driver, a law professor at Yale University. Advertisement 'The dissent both illuminates and underscores a significant divide among the six Republican-appointed justices,' he said, 'with Alito and Thomas comfortable voicing positions that the other four would prefer to avoid.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The case involved a student identified in court papers as L.M. who tried to wear the shirt at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough in 2023. When students and a teacher complained, the principal told the student that he could not return to class unless he changed clothes. He refused and was sent home. Later, the student came to school wearing a T-shirt that this time said 'There Are CENSORED Genders.' He was told that was not permitted, either. Rather than missing more school, he changed clothes. His parents sued, saying the school's policy violated the First Amendment. They relied on a landmark 1969 Supreme Court decision, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, which held that public school students have First Amendment rights. In that case, students sought to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. Advertisement Justice Abe Fortas, writing for the majority, said students do not 'shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.' But he added that disruptive speech could be punished. In the Massachusetts case, a federal trial judge ruled for the school, saying the student's shirts had invaded the rights of other students. The US Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, in Boston, affirmed that ruling. Judge David J. Barron, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, said the school could ban messages that demean other students' deeply rooted characteristics in a way that poisons the educational atmosphere. Alito wrote that the 1st Circuit's approach was at odds with Tinker and violated the First Amendment's prohibition of viewpoint discrimination by the government. 'Like the black armbands in Tinker, L.M.'s shirts were a 'silent, passive expression of opinion, unaccompanied by any disorder or disturbance,'' he wrote, quoting from the decision. 'And just as in Tinker, some of L.M.'s classmates found his speech upsetting. Feeling upset, however, is an unavoidable part of living in our 'often disputatious' society, and Tinker made abundantly clear that the 'mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint' is no reason to thwart a student's speech.' Alito added that the Massachusetts school 'promotes the view that gender is a fluid construct' and should allow other perspectives. 'If anything, viewpoint discrimination in the lower grades is more objectionable because young children are more impressionable and thus more susceptible to indoctrination,' he wrote. Advertisement The court will soon decide a case on a related question: whether public schools in Maryland must allow parents with religious objections to withdraw their children from classes in which storybooks with LGBTQ+ themes are discussed. Driver said 'Justice Alito's emphasizing the dangers of 'indoctrination' of younger students could well preview a theme' in the Maryland case. In addition to joining Alito's dissent, Thomas, long a skeptic of minors' First Amendment rights, wrote separately to say he believed that Tinker should be overruled. 'But, unless and until this court revisits it, Tinker is binding precedent that lower courts must faithfully apply,' he wrote.
