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Plaintiffs Contesting Tren de Aragua Membership Claims / Alien Enemies Act Application Can't Sue Pseudonymously

Eugene Volokh | 8.14.2026 8:33 AM

​From yesterday's published order in W.M.M. v. Trump (en banc), by Chief Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod:

In response to questions at oral argument and a later directive from the court, counsel for petitioners and the government revealed that the government has removed the three original named petitioners in this case. As there are currently no named petitioners in this appeal who are still in the United States, petitioners have moved to add five new class representatives on appeal—a motion that we deny today.

Petitioners have also moved for these five proposed class representatives to proceed pseudonymously on appeal, as well as for the sealing of their unredacted motion to add class representatives. The government does not oppose either motion.

But "the parties' consent does not end the analysis when determining whether pseudonymization is appropriate. Instead, the court must conduct its own balancing of the public and private interests at stake." We DENY these motions without prejudice to any future determination by the district court regarding whether to allow any new class representatives to proceed under pseudonyms or whether to seal a motion adding class representatives.

"What transpires in the court room is public property." Indeed, disclosure is generally favored. And "[p]ublic naming of litigants is one aspect of the broader 'presumption, long supported by courts, that the public has a common-law right of access to judicial records.'" Thus, "[a] strong presumption against party pseudonymity is generally well settled."

Of course, this presumption can give way in appropriate circumstances… [O]ur court has articulated "three factors common to anonymous-party suits that … 'deserve considerable weight'" in determining whether to allow parties to use pseudonyms: "(1) whether the plaintiff is 'challeng[ing] governmental........

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