The Supreme Court just handed President Trump a landslide victory on immigration.
The Supreme Court ended humanitarian aid programs for immigrants, giving President Donald Trump a landslide victory and leaving families in limbo.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to conclude its current term in the coming days, and several high-profile cases have yet to be decided, including three involving President Donald Trump’s far-reaching claims to executive power, two important election-related cases, and one involving state crackdowns on transgender athletes.
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has seven unresolved cases and has set June 29 for its next decision. The Supreme Court’s term begins in October and usually ends around the end of June, sometimes extending into early July.
Trump’s lawsuit centers on his moves last year to fire members of the Federal Reserve and the Federal Trade Commission, and his executive order last year restricting birthright citizenship, three actions that test the limits of presidential power.
The court on Thursday handed the Republican president a victory in two immigration-related cases, supporting him in several emergency rulings since he returned to office last year and allowing him to implement policies blocked by lower courts while legal challenges proceed. But in February, a court ruled against him, denying him significant tariffs issued under a law meant to apply during national emergencies.
layoffs of federal employees;
In arguments in January, the justices expressed skepticism about President Trump’s move to fire Lisa Cook, which threatens the Fed’s independence.
No other president since its creation in 1913 has attempted to fire Fed officials. To create the Fed, Congress passed a law that included provisions aimed at insulating the Fed from political interference and requiring that the president could only be removed by the president for “just cause.” The law does not define the term or provide a procedure for removal.
President Trump justified his firing by citing baseless allegations of mortgage fraud, which Cook denied. Mr. Cook remained in his post while the case proceeded, claiming the allegations were a pretext for his removal over differences in monetary policy.
In arguments in December, the conservative justices signaled they would uphold President Trump’s decision to fire Democratic Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter over policy differences. A lower court ruled that President Trump overstepped his authority.
U.S. Attorney General D. John Sauer sided with the administration, asking the justices to overturn the 1935 Supreme Court precedent in Executive Humphrey v. United States, which limited presidential power by protecting the heads of certain independent agencies from removal. In recent decades, courts have narrowed the scope of precedent, but have not been able to overturn it.
The conservative justices appeared sympathetic to the administration’s argument that the lifetime tenure protections Congress gives to heads of independent agencies infringe on the president’s powers under the U.S. Constitution. The court last year allowed President Trump to fire Slaughter while the case was pending.
Election-related incidents
Two election-related decisions are scheduled as Republicans seek to maintain control of Congress as the November midterm elections approach.
In arguments in March, the conservative justices expressed skepticism about a Mississippi law challenged by Republicans that allows a five-day grace period to count mail-in ballots received after Election Day. The case could lead to stricter voting rules across the United States.
The administration insisted it supports this challenge. Mississippi law allows mail-in ballots sent by voters to be counted if they are postmarked on or before Election Day and are received up to five business days after a federal election. A lower court ruled against the law.
In March, President Trump, who has falsely claimed that there was widespread fraud in the U.S. election, issued an executive order restricting mail-in voting nationwide, but a federal judge in Boston blocked its enforcement.
In December, the court heard arguments in a Republican-led case involving Vice President J.D. Vance, who is working with candidates to lower federal spending limits on political party spending. Some conservative justices were sympathetic to the challenge. Liberal members of the court seem inclined to keep the restrictions in place.
The debate centers on whether these restrictions violate First Amendment protections against government abridgement of free speech. Lower courts upheld this restriction.
transgender athlete
In January, the court heard arguments on the legality of laws in Idaho and West Virginia that prohibit transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports teams in public schools, including universities. Conservative justices appeared willing to abide by the law. The states said the measure would maintain fair competition for women and girls. Critics see them as part of a broader effort to restrict the rights of transgender Americans.
“Geofencing” guarantee
In April, the court heard arguments in a Virginia case about whether law enforcement’s use of “geofencing” warrants to identify potential suspects based on data from cellphones near crime scenes violates the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches.
