Page:Kirstjen M. Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security, et al. v. Mony Preap, et al..pdf/13

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Cite as: 586 U. S. ___ (2019)
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Opinion of Alito, J.

jurisdiction to entertain the plaintiffs’ request for declaratory relief, and for independent reasons given below, we are ordering the dissolution of the injunction that the District Court ordered.

Finally, and again before the Preap District Court, the Government raised a fourth potential snag: mootness. Class actions are “[n]ormally… moot if no named class representative with an unexpired claim remain[s] at the time of class certification.” United States v. Sanchez-Gomez, 584 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 4). But that general norm is no hurdle here.

The suggestion of mootness in these cases was based on the fact that by the time of class certification the named plaintiffs had obtained either cancellation of removal or bond hearings. See 831 F. 3d, at 1197–1198; Khoury v. Asher, 3 F. Supp. 3d 877, 879–880 (WD Wash. 2014). But those developments did not make the cases moot because at least one named plaintiff in both cases had obtained release on bond, as opposed to cancellation of removal, and that release had been granted following a preliminary injunction in a separate case. Unless that preliminary injunction was made permanent and was not disturbed on appeal, these individuals faced the threat of re-arrest and mandatory detention. And indeed, we later ordered that that injunction be dissolved. See Jennings, 583 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 31). Thus, in both cases, there was at least one named plaintiff with a live claim when the class was certified.

Even if that had not been so, these cases would not be moot because the fact that a class “was not certified until after the named plaintiffs’ claims had become moot does not deprive us of jurisdiction” when, as in these cases, the harms alleged are transitory enough to elude review. County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U. S. 44, 52 (1991) (affirming jurisdiction over a class action challenging a county’s failure to provide “prompt” determinations of