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Home Court filings East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump Opposition to Defendants' Motion to Stay TRO Pending Appeal — East Bay Sanctuary v. Trump

Court filing

Opposition to Defendants' Motion to Stay TRO Pending Appeal — East Bay Sanctuary v. Trump

Filed November 29, 2018 in East Bay Sanctuary v. Trump; one of 67 filings from this case.

Record facts

CourtU.S. District Court, N.D. Cal.
Filed2018-11-29

U.S. District Court, N.D. Cal. · No. 3:18-cv-06810-JST · Doc. 59 · 2018-11-29 · Docket on CourtListener

Full text

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Jennifer Chang Newell (SBN 233033)                    
Cody Wofsy (SBN 294179) 
Spencer Amdur**** (SBN 320069) 
Julie Veroff (SBN 310161) 
ACLU FOUNDATION  
IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS PROJECT 
39 Drumm Street 
San Francisco, CA 94111 
T: (415) 343-0770 
F: (415) 395-0950 
jnewell@aclu.org 
cwofsy@aclu.org 
samdur@aclu.org  
jveroff@aclu.org 
 
Lee Gelernt*
Judy Rabinovitz*  
Omar C. Jadwat* 
Celso Perez (SBN 304924) 
ACLU FOUNDATION 
IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS PROJECT 
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor 
New York, NY 10004 
T: (212) 549-2660 
F: (212) 549-2654 
lgelernt@aclu.org 
jrabinovitz@aclu.org  
ojadwat@aclu.org 
cperez@aclu.org 
 
Attorneys for Plaintiffs (Additional counsel listed on following page) 
 
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 
 
East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, et al., 
 
Plaintiffs, 
 
v. 
 
Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et 
al., 
 
Defendants. 
 
Case No.: 18-cv-06810-JST 
 
 
 
OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ 
EMERGENCY MOTION TO STAY 
TEMPORARY RESTRAINING 
ORDER PENDING APPEAL 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Case 3:18-cv-06810-JST   Document 59   Filed 11/29/18   Page 1 of 11

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Melissa Crow***
SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER 
1666 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 100 
Washington, D.C. 20009 
T: (202) 355-4471 
F: (404) 221-5857 
melissa.crow@splcenter.org 
 
Mary Bauer* 
SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER 
1000 Preston Avenue 
Charlottesville, VA  22903 
T:  (470) 606-9307 
F:  (404) 221-5857 
mary.bauer@splcenter.org 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Attorneys for Plaintiffs 
 
*Admitted pro hac vice 
**Application for pro hac vice pending 
***Pro hac vice application forthcoming   
****Application for admission forthcoming 
Baher Azmy*
Angelo Guisado* 
Ghita Schwarz* 
CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS 
666 Broadway, 7th Floor 
New York, NY 10012 
T: (212) 614-6464 
F: (212) 614-6499 
bazmy@ccrjustice.org 
aguisado@ccrjustice.org 
gshwartz@aclu.org 
 
Christine P. Sun (SBN 218701) 
Vasudha Talla (SBN 316219) 
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION 
FOUNDATION OF NORTHERN 
CALIFORNIA, INC. 
39 Drumm Street 
San Francisco, CA 94111 
T: (415) 621-2493 
F: (415) 255-8437 
csun@aclunc.org 
vtalla@aclunc.org 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Opposition to Motion to Stay TRO 1 
Case No. 18-cv-06810 
 
  
The government’s stay motion should be rejected.  This Court already concluded that a 
temporary restraining order is warranted in this case.  See ECF No. 43.  The standard for a stay 
pending appeal mirrors the standard for an injunction in the first instance.  Compare id. at 17 
(standard for a TRO) with Mot. 1-2 (standard for a stay).  Thus, in asking this Court for a stay, the 
government is  in effect asking that the Court reverse its prior TRO decision.  But every one of the 
TRO factors favors the temporary injunction the court issued, and therefore militates against a stay 
of that injunction.  In short, the Court’s decision was correct, and the government has offered no 
legitimate new reason to revisit it.  Defendants plainly disagree with the merits of this Court’s 
decision, but the government’s proper recourse to raise that disagreement is an appeal in the event 
this Court issues a preliminary injunction after the December 19 hearing. 
 
1. As an initial matter, the balance of hardships and public interest tip decisively in favor of 
the Plaintiffs.  Plaintiffs “made a clear showing that it is likely that they and their clients will suffer 
irreparable harm absent a TRO.”  ECF No. 43 at 32.  Plaintiffs themselves have suffered and will 
suffer irreparable injuries in the absence of the protection of the TRO, including the loss of an 
opportunity to comment before the government’s dramatic changes to asylum law are put in place.  
See id. at 31-32.  Moreover, Plaintiffs’ clients and other asylum seekers will be exposed “to 
numerous harms while waiting to present their claims, including not only physical privations like 
physical assault but also the loss of valuable, potentially meritorious claims for asylum.”  Id. at 32.  
Those harms will only increase if the TRO is lifted. 
 
The government’s responses to these harms is unpersuasive.  It asserts that none of Plaintiffs’ 
clients are impacted by the Rule.  But that is flatly wrong.  Plaintiffs represent children who are 
trapped in Mexico—unable to seek asylum at a port of entry and, because of the Rule, unable to seek 
asylum by entering between ports.  ECF No. 35-8 ¶¶13-15; ECF No. 43 at 12.  Likewise, while the 
government attempts to shrug off the harms to the Plaintiffs themselves as merely “financial,” Mot. 
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Opposition to Motion to Stay TRO 2 
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5, in fact the new Rule is requiring dramatic diversion of Plaintiffs’ resources and efforts, 
undermining their core missions, and placing their operations in jeopardy, all in ways that cannot be 
remedied after the fact, see ECF No. 43 at 11-13, 31.  And the assertion that the ability to comment 
after the Rule is in effect somehow cures the injury of unlawfully bypassing the Congressionally-
mandated notice and comment procedures required prior to the implementation of a Rule is 
contradicted by caselaw and would gut the APA’s statutory requirement.  See id. at 31.  In support of 
this baseless argument, Defendants cite only a case that did not even involve a notice-and-comment 
issue.  See L.A. Mem’l Coliseum Comm’n v. Nat’l Football League, 634 F.2d 1197, 1202 (9th Cir. 
1980). 
 
As for its own side of the balance, the government again offers only vague platitudes about 
executive power.  It recycles its reliance on the government’s interest in immigration enforcement.  
Mot. 2-3.  But as this Court already explained, “[t]he executive’s interest in deterring asylum 
seekers—whether or not their claims are meritorious—on a basis that Congress did not authorize 
carries drastically less weight” than actions that are consistent with Congress’s dictates—if it carries 
any weight at all.  ECF No. 43 at 32.  The government resists this conclusion, urging that 
immigration is also “an inherent executive power.”  Mot. 3 (internal quotation marks omitted).  But 
“[w]hen the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, 
his power is at its lowest ebb . . . .”  Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 637 
(1952) (Jackson, J., concurring).  Thus the government’s assertion of “a separation-of-powers harm” 
due to the TRO, Mot. 4, gets it exactly backwards, as the Court’s action was necessary to protect the 
separation of powers.  Indeed, the Court’s order maintains a legal status quo—the statutorily 
recognized entitlement to seek asylum between ports of entry—that has been in effect for nearly 40 
years.  It strains credulity to argue that maintenance of that congressionally-mandated regime during 
the days-long pendency of the preliminary injunction proceeding would cause grave damage.  
 
Next, the government contends that any time the executive is enjoined from effectuating its 
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Opposition to Motion to Stay TRO 3 
Case No. 18-cv-06810 
policy, it is irreparably injured.  Mot. 3 (citing Maryland v. King, 567 U.S. 1301, 1303 (2012) 
(Roberts, C.J., in chambers); O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao de Vegetal v. Ashcroft, 314 F.3d 
463, 467 (10th Cir. 2002)).  But King and O Centro both emphasized that the injunctions constrained 
duly enacted statutes.  Again, here the Court has already concluded that the new policy 
“irreconcilably conflicts with the INA and the expressed intent of Congress.”  ECF No. 43 at 2.1  
Moreover, both cases relied not solely on some abstract harm, but on “ongoing and concrete harm” 
to the government.  King, 567 U.S. at 1303; see O Centro, 314 F.3d at 467 (noting “extensive 
judicial and administrative oversight” needed to effectuate injunction).2 
 
Nor can the unexplained summary stay orders in the last round of litigation regarding the 
travel ban, see Mot. 2, carry water for the government here.  As this Court noted, “[n]o court has 
ever held that § 1182(f) ‘allow[s] the President to expressly override particular provisions of the 
INA.’”  ECF No. 43 at 23 (quoting Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392, 2411 (2018)).  Indeed, in 
Hawaii, the Supreme Court ultimately concluded that the President’s action in that case was 
consistent with the relevant statutes, in stark contrast to the situation here.  In any event, as this 
Court also noted, the government has conceded that “the Proclamation does not render any alien 
ineligible for asylum” and so is not doing the work, as it was in the travel ban.  Id. at 17.   
  
Finally, it cannot be that the government may simply invoke vague foreign negotiations as 
sufficient to warrant a stay—particularly in the context of a notice-and-comment claim where the 
applicability of the foreign policy exception is a disputed issue.  See ECF No. 43 at 27 (“Defendants 
do not say in their opposition, and were unable to explain at the hearing, how eliminating notice and 
comment would assist the United States in its negotiations.”).3 
                                           
1 Heckler v. Lopez, 463 U.S. 1328 (1983) (Rehnquist, J., in chambers), is likewise inapposite for this 
reason, see id. at 1331 (injunction interfered “with the distribution between administrative and 
judicial responsibility . . . which Congress has established”) (emphasis added). 
2 See also INS v. Legalization Assistance Project, 510 U.S. 1301, 1305-06 (1993) (O’Connor, J., in 
chambers) (“The order would impose a considerable administrative burden on the INS . . .”). 
3 Adams v. Vance, 570 F.2d 950, 957 & n.13 (D.C. Cir. 1978), involved an injunction requiring the 
 
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Opposition to Motion to Stay TRO 4 
Case No. 18-cv-06810 
 
2. Defendants’ arguments regarding likelihood of success on the merits likewise offer 
nothing to undermine this Court’s prior decision.  As this Court held, Plaintiff organizations have 
suffered cognizable injuries in fact sufficient to establish Article III standing.  Namely, the Rule 
causes economic losses, frustrates their missions, and forces them to divert resources in response.  
See ECF No. 43 at 8-13.  Any one of these theories is enough to confer standing.  Defendants offer 
no reason to disturb the Court’s conclusion. 
 
Contrary to Defendants’ claim, Plaintiffs submitted ample evidence that the Rule frustrates 
their core missions.  See, e.g., ECF No. 35-8 ¶¶ 4-6, 10, 13 (explaining that, because of the Rule, 
clients with potentially meritorious asylum claims are unable to pursue them); ECF No. 8-3 ¶¶ 5, 10; 
ECF No. 8-7 ¶¶ 6, 8-9, 15; ECF No. 8-6 ¶¶ 9-11; see also ECF No. 43 at 11 (stating Plaintiffs’ 
“mission has been frustrated in numerous cognizable ways”).4 
 
The record also clearly demonstrates that Plaintiffs have been forced to respond to these 
frustrations by diverting resources to efforts outside their core services.  See ECF No. 8-3 ¶¶ 5, 10-
11, 13; ECF No. 8-4 ¶¶ 9-10, 12-13; ECF No. 8-6 ¶¶ 8-12; ECF No. 8-7 ¶¶ 14-15, 17-19; ECF No. 
35-8 ¶¶ 14-16.  The Ninth Circuit has held similar diversions to be sufficient to satisfy Havens 
Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 379 (1982).  See ECF No. 43 at 9-10. 
  
In addition, Plaintiffs will suffer an imminent loss of funds and the potential closure of entire 
organizational programs because of the Rule.  See ECF No. 8-3 ¶ 12; ECF No. 8-4 ¶¶ 11-12; ECF 
No. 8-6 ¶ 11; ECF No. 8-7 ¶¶ 14-16.  Much of their funding is directly tied to their ability to pursue 
                                                                                                                                             
government to lodge an objection with an international body, which, the government’s detailed 
evidence indicated, would “substantially endanger the interests of the United States.”  The 
government has offered nothing remotely resembling such a showing here. 
4 Defendants criticize the Court for pointing to the government’s practice of “metering” asylum 
seekers at ports of entry and the barriers unaccompanied children face in getting on the list to present 
at a port, arguing that those practices and policies are not part of the Rule or Proclamation.  See Mot. 
5-6.  But Defendants largely ignore the Court’s point that  “[b]ecause of the Rule” Plaintiffs’ clients 
“are significantly delayed or wholly unable to pursue [their potentially meritorious asylum] claims, 
which are the Organizations’ core service.”  ECF No. 43 at 12; see also id. at 30 (citing Nat’l 
Wildlife Fed’n v. Nat’l Marine Fisheries Serv., 886 F.3d 803, 819 (9th Cir. 2018) (“[A] plaintiff 
[seeking preliminary injunctive relief] ‘need not further show that the action sought to be enjoined is 
the exclusive cause of the injury.’”)).  
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Opposition to Motion to Stay TRO 5 
Case No. 18-cv-06810 
affirmative asylum claims on a case-by-case basis.  See ECF No. 8-3 ¶ 7; ECF No. 8-4 ¶ 11; ECF 
No. 8-7 ¶¶ 15-16.  Defendants assert that Plaintiffs can simply begin representing asylum seekers 
who enter at ports of entry, Mot. 6, but that is no answer to Plaintiffs’ harm.  In the time it will take 
Plaintiffs to build new programs to effectively serve their current client population in light of the 
changed policy, or to serve other populations, they will suffer irreparable harm.  See Doe v. Trump, 
288 F. Supp. 3d 1045, 1083 (W.D. Wash. 2017); Exodus Refugee Immigration, Inc. v. Pence, 165 F. 
Supp. 3d 718, 739 (S.D. Ind. 2016) (granting preliminary injunction where organizational plaintiff 
presented evidence that as a result of a loss of funding, even if only temporary and able eventually to 
be reimbursed, “its organizational objectives would be irreparably damaged by its inability to 
provide adequate social services to its clients”), aff’d 838 F.3d 902, 904 (7th Cir. 2016) (“Without 
the injunction, Exodus, if unable (as it fears) to obtain the necessary funds from another source, will 
be unable to provide essential assistance to the refugees.”). 
 
This Court also correctly concluded that Plaintiffs have third-party standing to assert the 
legal rights of their unaccompanied minor children clients who wish to enter the United States to 
apply for asylum but cannot do so in significant part because of the new asylum ban.  Defendants 
take issue with the Court’s conclusion that these clients are hindered in their ability to assert their 
own rights.  Mot. 6-7.  But the Supreme Court has made clear that the “hindrance” factor is not a 
high bar.  The third party need not face an “insurmountable” barrier to asserting her rights; it is 
enough that there be a “genuine obstacle.”  Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 116-117 (1976); see 
also, e.g., Washington v. Trump, 847 F.3d 1151, 1160 (9th Cir. 2017) (“third-party standing is 
allowed . . . when the third party is less able to assert her own rights”) (emphasis added).  Here, 
Plaintiffs’ clients face several serious obstacles.  Critically, the clients are minor children.  Courts 
have repeatedly recognized that being a minor is a hindrance to asserting one’s own rights.  See 
Payne-Barahona v. Gonzales, 474 F.3d 1, 2 (1st Cir. 2007) (explaining that “hindrance” is “rather 
obvious in the case of minor children”); Marin-Garcia v. Holder, 647 F.3d 666, 670 (7th Cir. 
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Opposition to Motion to Stay TRO 6 
Case No. 18-cv-06810 
2011); Aid for Women v. Foulston, 441 F.3d 1101, 1114 (10th Cir. 2006) (“the fact that those 
patients are minors is an additional obstacle—minors are generally not legally sophisticated and are 
often unable even to maintain suits without a representative or guardian”).5  These children clients 
are also uniquely vulnerable given that they are fleeing persecution and so may wish to avoid 
drawing attention to themselves through litigation, particularly in light of Defendants’ professed 
opposition toward asylum seekers.  See Exodus Refugee Immigration, 165 F. Supp. 3d at 732.  
Finally, because the children are unable to present themselves at ports of entry, see ECF No. 35-8, 
¶¶ 4-6, 10, they are essentially trapped in dangerous border towns without any opportunity to apply 
for asylum.  See ECF No. 8-4 ¶¶ 38-39 (noting recent record-high murder rate in border town); ECF 
No. 35-8, ¶¶ 13-15.  
 
Defendants assert that because Plaintiffs have an existing attorney-client relationship with the 
children whose rights they are asserting indirectly, there can be no meaningful hindrance to Plaintiffs 
filing suit on behalf of their clients directly, i.e., with the children as plaintiffs.  See Mot. 7.  But if 
the existence of an attorney-client relationship meant that there could be no hindrance to a client 
asserting her own rights, then an attorney-client relationship could never be the basis for third-party 
standing.  Yet the Supreme Court has held that such relationships suffice.  Caplin & Drysdale, 
Chartered v. United States, 491 U.S. 617, 624 n.3 (1989); U.S. Dep’t of Labor v. Triplett, 494 U.S. 
715, 720 (1990).  Moreover, the legal avenues to seek review that the government invokes are not 
available to Plaintiffs’ clients, as they are not in removal (or expedited removal) proceedings.  And 
courts regularly recognize that non-legal hindrances are sufficient to satisfy Powers even where 
avenues for legal review are readily available.  See, e.g., Powers, 499 U.S. at 414-15; Singleton, 428 
                                           
5 This feature alone is sufficient to distinguish Am. Immigration Lawyers Ass’n (AILA) v. Reno, 199 
F.3d 1352 (D.C. Cir. 2000), which did not involve minor children clients.  Moreover, AILA in no 
way supports Defendants’ sweeping claim that “[a]ny putative practical obstacles that prospective 
immigrants may face in bringing lawsuits are generally insufficient to support third-party standing.”  
Mot. 6 (emphasis added).  AILA turned on the specific jurisdictional provisions governing expedited 
removal proceedings—which this Court noted are not at issue here.  See ECF No. 43 at 35. 
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Opposition to Motion to Stay TRO 7 
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U.S. at 117; Pennsylvania Psychiatric Soc. v. Green Spring Health Servs., Inc., 280 F.3d 278, 290 
(3d Cir. 2002).   
 
The government similarly offers nothing to disturb the Court’s zone-of-interest holding.  It 
asserts that Plaintiffs cannot rely on their clients’ interests, Mot. 6, but the Court already held 
otherwise, relying on a case that the government does not address, see ECF No. 43 at 16 (citing 
FAIC Secs., Inc. v. United States, 768 F.2d 352, 357-58 (D.C. Cir. 1985) (Scalia, J.)).  The one case 
the government does cite did not involve third party standing at all.  See Mountain States Legal 
Found. v. Glickman, 92 F.3d 1228 (D.C. Cir. 1996); see also id. at 1236 (holding that advocacy 
“foundations” were “suitable champions,” for zone-of-interests purposes, to advance the interests of 
the “individuals” they represent). 
 
The government also barely addresses the ways in which Plaintiffs themselves come within 
the relevant zones of interest.  For a notice-and-comment claim, “the APA’s notice and comment 
provision” provides the relevant zone of interest.  California v. Health & Human Servs., 281 F. 
Supp. 3d 806, 823 (N.D. Cal. 2017) (Gilliam, J.).  And while the government asserts that the INA’s 
zone of interests does not include organizations, it does not mention the cases holding otherwise, see 
ECF No. 35 at 6, and it fails to meaningfully address the many ways in which the INA and Refugee 
Act embed such organizations into the fabric of the asylum and refugee system, see id. at 5-6.6 
 
3.  On the merits, the government fails to cast doubt on the Court’s conclusion that the new 
Rule violates the INA.  The government again relies on Komarenko v. INS, 35 F.3d 432 (9th Cir. 
1994), for the idea that the executive may establish categorical limits on asylum.  But, as the Court 
explained, that argument addresses a strawman.  ECF No. 43 at 21 n.16.  Komarenko addressed a 
regulatory limit on asylum where the statute was “silent.”  35 F.3d at 436.  Here, Congress was 
emphatic that the manner of entry may not be adopted as a basis to deny asylum.  Thus no deference 
                                           
6 The only new case the government cites on this issue, Cuban Am. Bar Ass’n, Inc. v. Christopher, 
43 F.3d 1412, 1423 (11th Cir. 1995), held only that organizations did not represent, and were not 
injured by, the repatriation of individuals who had agreed in writing to be repatriated. 
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Opposition to Motion to Stay TRO 8 
Case No. 18-cv-06810 
is warranted.7 
 
Finally, the government adds nothing of substance to its prior arguments regarding notice and 
comment.  Its assertion that the foreign affairs exception does not require a showing of “definitely 
undesirable international consequences” remains foreclosed by precedent.  See ECF No. 43 at 25 
(quoting Yassini v. Crosland, 618 F.2d 1356, 1360 n.4 (9th Cir. 1980) (per curiam)).  And the 
striking claim that, to invoke good cause, “[a]ll the government must do is state its reasons” likewise 
ignores the law.  In United States v. Valverde, 628 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. 2010), for instance, the Ninth 
Circuit rejected the government’s proffered reasons as “conclusory” and “speculative,” id. at 1164.  
The same is true here.  To hold otherwise would allow the “good cause” exception to swallow the 
notice-and-comment rule.  See ECF No. 43 at 28 (“[T]he good cause exception should be interpreted 
narrowly, so that the exception will not swallow the rule.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).8 
* 
* 
* 
 
The Court has already placed this case on an expedited preliminary injunction schedule.  The 
request for a stay should be denied, and the case should proceed on the expedited schedule.  
CONCLUSION 
 
The Court should deny the stay motion. 
 
 
                                           
7 Nor is there merit to the government’s international law argument.  Mot. 8-9.  It again relies on 
cases addressing unlawful reentry after an individual has been removed.  See id. (citing Cazun v. 
Attorney General, United States, 856 F.3d 249, 257 n.16 (3d Cir. 2017); Mejia v. Sessions, 866 F.3d 
573, 588 (4th Cir. 2017)); see also ECF No. 35 at 13 n.10.  But whatever Article 31’s application to 
that situation—a topic that has generated divergent views, see Garcia v. Sessions, 856 F.3d 27, 57-
59 (1st Cir. 2017) (Stahl, J. dissenting)—here the Rule categorically punishes refugees based on 
their “illegal entry or presence” in clear conflict with Article 31, ECF No. 43 at 20 (internal 
quotation marks omitted); see also ECF No. 8-5 ¶ 6. 
8 By contrast, Malek-Marzban v. Immigration & Naturalization Serv., 653 F.2d 113, 116 (4th Cir. 
1981), which the government cites, addressed the “urgency of the international crisis” created by 
“the unlawful detention of American citizens in the United States Embassy in Tehran.”  None of the 
other cases the government newly cites on this issue even addressed a notice-and-comment claim.  
See Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1, 34 (2010); Oryszak v. Sullivan, 576 F.3d 522, 
525-26 (D.C. Cir. 2009). 
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Opposition to Motion to Stay TRO 9 
Case No. 18-cv-06810 
 
 
Dated: November 29, 2018 
 
 
Jennifer Chang Newell (SBN 233033)                    
Cody Wofsy (SBN 294179) 
Spencer Amdur**** (SBN 320069) 
Julie Veroff (SBN 310161) 
ACLU FOUNDATION  
IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS PROJECT 
39 Drumm Street 
San Francisco, CA 94111 
T: (415) 343-0770 
F: (415) 395-0950 
jnewell@aclu.org 
cwofsy@aclu.org 
samdur@aclu.org  
jveroff@aclu.org 
 
Melissa Crow*** 
SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER 
1666 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 100 
Washington, D.C. 20009 
T: (202) 355-4471 
F: (404) 221-5857 
melissa.crow@splcenter.org 
 
Mary Bauer* 
SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER 
1000 Preston Avenue 
Charlottesville, VA  22903 
T:  (470) 606-9307 
F:  (404) 221-5857 
mary.bauer@splcenter.org 
 
Attorneys for Plaintiffs 
 
*Admitted pro hac vice 
**Application for pro hac vice pending 
***Pro hac vice application forthcoming   
****Application for admission forthcoming 
 
 
Respectfully submitted,  
 
/s/Lee Gelernt 
Lee Gelernt* 
Judy Rabinovitz*  
Omar C. Jadwat* 
Celso Perez (SBN 304924) 
ACLU FOUNDATION 
IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS PROJECT 
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor 
New York, NY 10004 
T: (212) 549-2660 
F: (212) 549-2654 
lgelernt@aclu.org 
jrabinovitz@aclu.org  
ojadwat@aclu.org 
cperez@aclu.org 
 
Christine P. Sun (SBN 218701) 
Vasudha Talla (SBN 316219) 
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF 
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, INC.  
39 Drumm Street 
San Francisco, CA 94111 
T: (415) 621-2493 
F: (415) 255-8437 
csun@aclu.org 
vtalla@aclu.org 
 
Baher Azmy* 
Angelo Guisado* 
Gita Schwarz* 
CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS 
666 Broadway, 7th Floor 
New York, NY 10012 
T: (212) 614-6464 
F: (212) 614-6499 
bazmy@ccrjustice.org 
aguisado@ccrjustice.org 
gschwartz@ccrjustice.org 
 
 
Case 3:18-cv-06810-JST   Document 59   Filed 11/29/18   Page 11 of 11

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