Supreme Court rules detained foreign nationals in U.S. illegally can’t file class action lawsuits

At issue before the Supreme Court was whether the lower courts had jurisdiction to hear their requests and provide class-wide injunctive relief under the INA

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that foreign nationals in the U.S. illegally and detained on immigration charges can’t file class action lawsuits.

The court ruled 6-3 in Garland v. Aleman Gonzalez with Justice Samuel Alito writing for the majority. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a partial dissent with Justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer joining.

The court reversed a ruling issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that allowed detained foreign nationals to file class-action lawsuits who also demanded bond hearings for their release. By doing so, the Supreme Court effectively shut down such lawsuits from being filed in the future.

At issue are two cases brought by Mexican and El Salvadoran nationals who sued the federal government for detaining them according to federal law after they reentered the U.S. illegally. They alleged they had a right to file a class action lawsuit and were entitled to a bond hearing.

One case was brought by Mexican nationals Esteban Aleman Gonzalez and Jose Eduardo Gutierrez Sanchez, who were detained on immigration charges under the Immigration and Naturalization Act after they’d reentered the U.S. illegally. They filed a putative class action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California alleging they were entitled to bond hearings due to the length of time they were detained. The District Court certified a class of similarly situated plaintiffs and enjoined the federal government from detaining them for more than 180 days without providing them with a bond hearing. A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

Another plaintiff, Edwin Flores Tejada, a native and citizen of El Salvador, also reentered the U.S. illegally and was also detained according to federal law. He sued in the Western District of Washington, alleging that he was entitled to a bond hearing. The District Court certified a class, granted partial summary judgment against the government, and entered class-wide injunctive relief, which a divided panel of the Ninth Circuit also affirmed.

At issue before the Supreme Court was whether the lower courts had jurisdiction to hear their requests and provide class-wide injunctive relief under the INA.

The Supreme Court ruled they did not.

“We hold that the District Courts exceeded their jurisdiction in awarding such relief,” Alito wrote for the majority. He also said, “Respondents advance two counter-arguments, but both fail.”

“The classwide injunctive relief awarded in these cases was unlawful,” the court concluded. “The judgments of the Court of Appeals are reversed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/supreme-court-rules-detained-foreign-nationals-us-illegally-cant-file