They couldn’t win at the ballot box, and they couldn’t get Congress to repeal the Alien Enemies Act. So instead, they found a sympathetic judge in Manhattan and filed a class action—not just on behalf of a few Venezuelan nationals contesting deportation under President Trump’s proclamation, but on behalf of an entire, judicially imagined class.
If granted, the result would be a single district court—chosen not by chance but by design—halting enforcement of immigration law across the entire nation.
One bench, one judge, one political agenda. The real goal isn’t relief. It’s rerouting immigration enforcement into the courtroom of a carefully selected progressive jurist.
This isn’t due process. It’s due manipulation.
Call it what it is: Rule 23 meets the Resistance.
What Class Actions Were Meant to Be
Class actions were designed to streamline litigation involving large numbers of similarly situated plaintiffs. Under Rule 23(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, class-wide relief is permitted when “the party opposing the class has acted or refused to act on grounds that apply generally to the class.”
But immigration enforcement doesn’t operate that way. The federal government doesn’t act “generally” toward aliens in custody—it acts specifically and case-by-case, weighing factors such as manner of entry, gang affiliation, visa status, prior offenses, and national security risk. There is no uniform policy to enjoin—only the lawful execution of discretion authorized by statute and delegated to the executive branch.
And here’s the irony: applying class-wide standards would actually undermine the very due process rights the progressive legal cartel claims to champion. If each alien is entitled to a unique factual inquiry—as the plaintiffs insist—then bundling them into a procedural monolith isn’t a safeguard. It’s a violation. You cannot demand individualized constitutional protections while seeking collectivized judicial remedies.
According to the Left’s legal strategy, every alien deserves individualized due process—so long as they’re treated collectively. That’s not legal consistency. That’s procedural schizophrenia.
Though styled as a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, the plaintiffs invoke Rule 23 to obtain class-wide relief—an awkward procedural hybrid designed to bypass both statutory limits and constitutional structure. Their filing fuses habeas, APA claims, and constitutional arguments into a single vehicle—not to protect individual rights, but to engineer a nationwide injunction from a single, hand-picked court.
And even if Rule 23 were satisfied, class-wide immigration injunctions are explicitly barred by federal law. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1), “no court (other than the Supreme Court) shall have jurisdiction or authority to enjoin or restrain the operation of the provisions of part IV of this subchapter,” except with respect to the individual alien before the court. That includes the Alien Enemies Act and the removal provisions at issue.
While the Alien Enemies Act is codified in Title 50, its enforcement occurs through the statutory machinery of immigration law—detention, removal, and deportation authorities housed in Title 8. Attempts to enjoin AEA-based removals necessarily operate against this enforcement framework and fall squarely within the jurisdictional bar of § 1252(f)(1).
Lower courts do not have the power to enjoin immigration law on a class-wide basis. Congress reserved that authority exclusively to the Supreme Court—and the Court made that explicit in Garland v. Aleman Gonzalez (2022). It held that § 1252(f)(1) “generally prohibits lower courts from entering injunctions that order federal officials to take or to refrain from taking actions to enforce, implement, or otherwise carry out” immigration enforcement provisions.
To date, the Supreme Court has never exercised that power. Yet the lawfare cartel presses ahead, ignoring the statute and precedent in a calculated end-run around the Constitution’s allocation of powers.
What’s happening instead is a procedural sleight of hand: use Rule 23 to manufacture jurisdiction where none exists, then bypass statutory limits with a cleverly framed “class.” It’s not just wrong—it’s unlawful.
From Procedural Mechanism to Policy Weapon
The ACLU’s recent filing in the Southern District of New York—known colloquially, and not without cause, as the “Sovereign District of New York”—is the latest deployed weapon in procedural lawfare. By seeking certification of a nationwide class of Venezuelan nationals subject to removal under President Trump’s March proclamation, the ACLU isn’t trying to streamline anything.
The objective is pure obstruction—100% procedural sabotage.
The case doesn’t challenge gang affiliation on a person-by-person basis. It seeks a judicial veto of presidential authority through blanket injunction. That’s telling. The same activist networks that vilify the Trump administration for targeting gang-affiliated foreign nationals now insist those same affiliations are too vague, too prejudicial, or too procedurally suspect to act on.
When it comes to national security, even violent criminal organizations designated as terrorist threats are suddenly entitled to the benefit of the doubt—so long as it undermines this administration.
And to what end? What exactly is to happen to these aliens if they are not removed?
Here’s a hint: it’s not to keep them in custody in perpetuity.
And this isn’t their first attempt. They tried the same class-based maneuver before Judge Boasberg in Washington, D.C.—a judge who lacked jurisdiction over most of the individuals affected, many of whom were already in Texas, on deportation flights, or outside U.S. borders altogether. The Supreme Court rightly struck down that overreach.
But rather than reevaluate their strategy, the plaintiffs picked a new venue and repackaged the same arguments for a new judge, this time in Manhattan.
It’s the paradox of lawfare by class action: they want a unified legal collective when it suits their procedural aims—but scatter into individualized claims the moment standing or jurisdiction becomes inconvenient. It’s not about consistency. It’s about strategy.
The radical legal cartel will weaponize any tool in the procedural toolbox to gum up the works—to stall enforcement, run out the clock, and bet on either a change in administration, a loss of public will, or a simple depletion of government resources.
Their aim isn’t to win on the merits. It’s to bury immigration enforcement under a landslide of litigation.
By pushing for class certification, they’re not seeking relief for individuals—they’re constructing a judicial weapon. Win at the district court level, dare the appellate courts to reverse it, and then use that reversal to launch broader attacks on the judiciary itself—especially the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. The goal isn’t legal clarity.
It’s political leverage.
At its core, this isn’t about process—it’s about power. And there is nothing democratic about it.
Why It Must Be Stopped
When the Left loses elections, it turns to the courts. The same legal networks have weaponized Rule 23 and other procedural contrivances to block immigration enforcement and regulatory rollback—funneling national policy into the courtrooms of hand-picked judges.
At stake is something deeper than immigration. This is a test of whether we remain a constitutional republic—whether unelected judges can nullify executive action, longstanding law, and constitutional governance through procedural fiat.
This isn’t just lawfare. It’s medieval siege lawfare.
Rule 23 was never designed to override national security policy, rewrite immigration law, pause the President’s enforcement powers, or nullify statutory law nearly as old as the Constitution itself. But that’s exactly how it’s being wielded.
Unless Congress or the Supreme Court intervenes, we’ll cede control of immigration enforcement—and far more—one certified class at a time.
Charlton Allen is an attorney, former chief executive officer, and chief judicial officer of the North Carolina Industrial Commission. He is the founder of the Madison Center for Law & Liberty, Inc., editor of The American Salient, and the host of the Modern Federalist podcast. X: @CharltonAllenNC
American Thinker
Jesus Christ is King
Comments are closed.