Dep't of Homeland Sec. v. New York

• Decision Date: 27 January 2020
• Docket Number: No. 19A785,19A785
• Citation: Dep't of Homeland Sec. v. New York, 140 S. Ct. 599, 206 L.Ed.2d 115(Mem) (2020)
• Parties: DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, et al. v. NEW YORK, et al.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

140 S.Ct. 599 (Mem)

206 L.Ed.2d 115

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, et al.

v.NEW YORK, et al.

No. 19A785

Supreme Court of the United States.

January 27, 2020

The application for stay presented to Justice GINSBURG and by her referred to the Court is granted, and the District Court's October 11, 2019 orders granting a preliminary injunction are stayed pending disposition of the Government's appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and disposition of the Government's petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is timely sought. Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court.

Justice GINSBURG, Justice BREYER, Justice SOTOMAYOR, and Justice KAGAN would deny the application.

Justice GORSUCH, with whom Justice THOMAS joins, concurring in the grant of stay.

On October 10, 2018, the Department of Homeland Security began a rulemaking process to define the term "public charge," as it is used in the Nation's immigration laws. Approximately 10 months and 266,000 comments later, the agency issued a final rule. Litigation swiftly followed, with a number of States, organizations, and individual plaintiffs variously alleging that the new definition violates the Constitution, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the immigration laws themselves. These plaintiffs have urged courts to enjoin the rule's enforcement not only as it applies to them, or even to some definable group having something to do with their claimed injury, but as it applies to anyone .

These efforts have met with mixed results. The Northern District of California ordered the government not to enforce the new rule within a hodge-podge of jurisdictions—California, Oregon, Maine, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia. The Eastern District of Washington entered a similar order, but went much farther geographically, enjoining the government from enforcing its rule globally. But both of those orders were soon stayed by the Ninth Circuit which, in a 59-page opinion, determined the government was likely to succeed on the merits. Meanwhile, across the country, the District of Maryland entered its own universal injunction, only to have that one stayed by the Fourth Circuit. And while all these developments were unfolding on the coasts, the Northern District of Illinois was busy fashioning its own injunction, this one limited to enforcement within the State of Illinois.

If all of this is confusing, don't worry, because none of it matters much at this point. Despite the fluid state of things—some interim wins for the government over here, some preliminary relief for plaintiffs over there—we now have an injunction to rule them all: the one before us, in which a single judge in New York enjoined the government from applying the new definition to anyone, without regard to geography or participation in this or any other lawsuit. The Second Circuit declined to stay this particular universal injunction, and so now, after so many trips up and down and around the judicial map, the government brings its well-rehearsed arguments here.

Today the Court (rightly) grants a stay, allowing the government to pursue (for now) its policy everywhere save Illinois. But, in light of all that's come before, it would be delusional to think that one stay today suffices to remedy the problem. The real problem here is the increasingly common practice of trial courts ordering relief that transcends the cases before them. Whether framed as injunctions of "nationwide," "universal," or "cosmic" scope, these orders share the same basic flaw—they direct how the defendant must act toward persons who are not parties to the case.

Equitable remedies, like remedies in general, are meant to redress the injuries sustained by a particular plaintiff in a particular lawsuit. When a district court orders the government not to enforce a rule against the plaintiffs in the case before it, the court redresses the injury that gives...