Latest news with #CNNSupremeCourt
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court blocks Trump from restarting Alien Enemies Act deportations
The Supreme Court on Friday blocked President Donald Trump from moving forward with deportations under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act for a group of immigrants in northern Texas, siding with Venezuelans who feared they were poised for imminent removal under the sweeping wartime authority. The decision is a significant loss for Trump, who wants to use the law to speed deportations – and avoid the kind of review normally required before removing people from the country. But the decision is also temporary and the underlying legal fight over the president's invocation has continued simultaneously in multiple federal courts across the country. The justices sent the case back to an appeals court to decide the underlying questions in the case, including whether the president's move is legal and, if it is, how much notice the migrants targeted under the act should receive. Two conservative justices – Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito – publicly noted their dissent. The court's unsigned opinion was notably pointed about how the government was handling the removals and also how US District Judge James Hendrix had dealt with the case at an earlier stage. The court pointed to another case that had reached it previously, that of the Maryland man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly removed to El Salvador. The court noted that the Trump administration has represented that it is 'unable to provide for the return of an individual deported in error to a prison in El Salvador.' Given that, the court said, 'the detainees' interests at stake are accordingly particularly weighty.' The court added that the way the Trump administration was handling the removals did not 'pass muster.' Specifically, the justices pointed to notice of only 24 hours that was 'devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal.' The Supreme Court sent the case back to the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals for further review, saying in its order that the appeals court erred in dismissing the detainees' case. 'Today's ruling effectively extends the temporary freeze that the justices put on Alien Enemies Act removals from the Northern District of Texas back on April 19,' said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown Law. 'Because lower courts have blocked use of the act in every other district in which the president has sought to invoke it, that means it's effectively pausing all removals under the act until the 5th Circuit – and, presumably, the Supreme Court itself – conclusively resolves whether they're legal and how much process is due if so.' The court also appeared to criticize how Hendrix, whom Trump nominated to the bench in his first term, had handled the case. Hendrix declined to halt the removals and argued in his opinion that the ACLU was attempting to rush the district court to act. This story is breaking and will be updated.
CNN
17-04-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Supreme Court to hear arguments in May in challenge to Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship
The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear oral arguments over President Donald Trump's request to enforce a plan to end birthright citizenship against all but a handful of individuals, though it deferred a request from the administration that would have allowed it to implement its plan immediately. The high court will hear arguments in the case on May 15. Though Trump was raising what the administration described as a 'modest' request to limit lower court orders against his plans, the court's decision to hear arguments in the case was nevertheless remarkable and historic. A win for Trump would allow him to enforce a policy that a lower court described as 'blatantly unconstitutional' throughout most of the nation. The court did not explain its reasoning and there were no noted dissents. While presidents of both parties have complained about lower court temporary orders for years, Trump has been a particularly vocal critic since beginning his second term as he has been pummeled with a series of adverse rulings that have slowed his agenda. 'The Trump administration is trying to use a procedural issue to get the Supreme Court to put its birthright citizenship policy into effect across 99% of the country without actually having to decide if the policy is constitutional,' said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center. The main issue the government has asked the justices to decide is whether it's appropriate for district courts to issue nationwide injunctions, an issue the justices have already had multiple opportunities to take up in cases with far less fraught politics, Vladeck said. 'It would be a stunning development if the justices used these cases, specifically, to resolve that issue – since it would have the effect of allowing a policy that just about everyone thinks is unconstitutional to nevertheless go into effect on a near-universal basis.' Trump made ending birthright citizenship part of his campaign for reelection, even though past presidents and courts for more than a century have read the 14th Amendment to guarantee citizenship to anyone 'born or naturalized in the United States.' He signed an executive order on his first day back in the White House that would have barred the government from issuing or accepting documents recognizing citizenship for people born in the US to foreign parents. The move drew a series of swift lawsuits and lower courts issued sweeping injunctions requiring Trump to halt implementation of his birthright citizenship order. That is likely why Trump focused his appeal not on birthright citizenship, per se, but rather framed it as a 'modest' request to limit the scope of the lower court orders. While that was technically a modest legal request that, in another context, might have found bipartisan support, it is a potentially explosive one practically. A landmark Supreme Court precedent from 1898, US v. Wong Kim Ark, affirmed the idea that people born in the United States are citizens, and the modern court hasn't signaled a desire to revisit that holding. But some conservatives believe those long-held views are misguided. The 14th Amendment includes a phrase that citizenship applies only to people who are 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States. And, they have said, foreign national parents who are in the US illegally may not be viewed as meeting that requirement. As it has in many pending cases, the Department of Justice claimed lower courts were vastly exceeding their authority by handing down 'nationwide' injunctions that block the government from taking action against anyone – including people who did not sue to challenge the policy. Presidents of both political parties have complained about those orders in recent years. So, too, have some of the Supreme Court's justices. But opponents of Trump's birthright citizenship policy argued that if there was any case that demanded nationwide action, it was this one. That, they argued, was partly because Trump's efforts were so flagrantly unconstitutional. It also doesn't make sense, they said, to have one set of citizenship rules for some people and another set for others. Emergency orders don't decide the merits of a case, but they often have significant practical implications in the short term. In 2021, the Supreme Court declined to block a Texas law that banned most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy – even though the law conflicted with the court's landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. The court's decision effectively allowed Texas to enforce that six-week ban. Months later, the court's conservative majority overturned Roe. Days after Trump signed the order, a federal judge in Washington was who nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, temporarily blocked the administration from enforcing it. In early February, the judge issued a preliminary injunction that indefinitely blocked its enforcement. Days later, a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. That suit was filed by four states – Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon – and was later consolidated with a suit filed by individual plaintiffs. 'I have been on the bench for over four decades. I can't remember another case where the question presented was as clear,' US District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle said in January before temporarily blocking Trump from enforcing the order. At one point, Coughenour described Trump's effort as 'blatantly unconstitutional.' On February 5, a federal judge in Maryland, appointed to the bench by President Joe Biden, handed down a separate preliminary injunction, barring Trump from enforcing the order nationwide in a case filed by two immigrant rights groups and five individuals. A three-judge panel of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to uphold that decision. The two judges in the majority were appointed by Democratic presidents and the dissenter was named by President George H.W. Bush. Days later, a federal judge in Massachusetts, issued a third injunction in a case filed by New Jersey and 17 other states. That judge was named to the bench by President Barack Obama. Trump appealed all three cases to the Supreme Court on March 13. This story has been updated with additional details.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court to hear arguments in May in challenge to Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship
The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear oral arguments over President Donald Trump's request to enforce a plan to end birthright citizenship against all but a handful of individuals, though it deferred a request from the administration that would have allowed it to implement its plan immediately. The high court will hear arguments in the case on May 15. Though Trump was raising what the administration described as a 'modest' request to limit lower court orders against his plans, the court's decision to hear arguments in the case was nevertheless remarkable and historic. A win for Trump would allow him to enforce a policy that a lower court described as 'blatantly unconstitutional' throughout most of the nation. The court did not explain its reasoning and there were no noted dissents. While presidents of both parties have complained about lower court temporary orders for years, Trump has been a particularly vocal critic since beginning his second term as he has been pummeled with a series of adverse rulings that have slowed his agenda. 'The Trump administration is trying to use a procedural issue to get the Supreme Court to put its birthright citizenship policy into effect across 99% of the country without actually having to decide if the policy is constitutional,' said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center. The main issue the government has asked the justices to decide is whether it's appropriate for district courts to issue nationwide injunctions, an issue the justices have already had multiple opportunities to take up in cases with far less fraught politics, Vladeck said. 'It would be a stunning development if the justices used these cases, specifically, to resolve that issue – since it would have the effect of allowing a policy that just about everyone thinks is unconstitutional to nevertheless go into effect on a near-universal basis.' Trump made ending birthright citizenship part of his campaign for reelection, even though past presidents and courts for more than a century have read the 14th Amendment to guarantee citizenship to anyone 'born or naturalized in the United States.' He signed an executive order on his first day back in the White House that would have barred the government from issuing or accepting documents recognizing citizenship for people born in the US to foreign parents. The move drew a series of swift lawsuits and lower courts issued sweeping injunctions requiring Trump to halt implementation of his birthright citizenship order. That is likely why Trump focused his appeal not on birthright citizenship, per se, but rather framed it as a 'modest' request to limit the scope of the lower court orders. While that was technically a modest legal request that, in another context, might have found bipartisan support, it is a potentially explosive one practically. A landmark Supreme Court precedent from 1898, US v. Wong Kim Ark, affirmed the idea that people born in the United States are citizens, and the modern court hasn't signaled a desire to revisit that holding. But some conservatives believe those long-held views are misguided. The 14th Amendment includes a phrase that citizenship applies only to people who are 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States. And, they have said, foreign national parents who are in the US illegally may not be viewed as meeting that requirement. As it has in many pending cases, the Department of Justice claimed lower courts were vastly exceeding their authority by handing down 'nationwide' injunctions that block the government from taking action against anyone – including people who did not sue to challenge the policy. Presidents of both political parties have complained about those orders in recent years. So, too, have some of the Supreme Court's justices. But opponents of Trump's birthright citizenship policy argued that if there was any case that demanded nationwide action, it was this one. That, they argued, was partly because Trump's efforts were so flagrantly unconstitutional. It also doesn't make sense, they said, to have one set of citizenship rules for some people and another set for others. Emergency orders don't decide the merits of a case, but they often have significant practical implications in the short term. In 2021, the Supreme Court declined to block a Texas law that banned most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy – even though the law conflicted with the court's landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. The court's decision effectively allowed Texas to enforce that six-week ban. Months later, the court's conservative majority overturned Roe. Days after Trump signed the order, a federal judge in Washington was who nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, temporarily blocked the administration from enforcing it. In early February, the judge issued a preliminary injunction that indefinitely blocked its enforcement. Days later, a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. That suit was filed by four states – Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon – and was later consolidated with a suit filed by individual plaintiffs. 'I have been on the bench for over four decades. I can't remember another case where the question presented was as clear,' US District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle said in January before temporarily blocking Trump from enforcing the order. At one point, Coughenour described Trump's effort as 'blatantly unconstitutional.' On February 5, a federal judge in Maryland, appointed to the bench by President Joe Biden, handed down a separate preliminary injunction, barring Trump from enforcing the order nationwide in a case filed by two immigrant rights groups and five individuals. A three-judge panel of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to uphold that decision. The two judges in the majority were appointed by Democratic presidents and the dissenter was named by President George H.W. Bush. Days later, a federal judge in Massachusetts, issued a third injunction in a case filed by New Jersey and 17 other states. That judge was named to the bench by President Barack Obama. Trump appealed all three cases to the Supreme Court on March 13. This story has been updated with additional details.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court backs Trump for now on fired probationary federal employees
The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to keep several thousand probationary federal employees it is attempting to fire off the payroll while lower courts weigh whether the downsizing efforts are legal, the latest in a series of wins for the White House at the conservative high court. The Supreme Court's decision blocks a ruling from a lower court judge that required the government to temporarily reinstate more than 16,000 probationary employees. In a brief, two-paragraph order, the court said that the unions who filed the litigation didn't have standing to sue. The decision didn't address the merits of the arguments, and it is not the final word on whether the employees will be allowed to keep their jobs, but it will have a significant impact on both the workers and the agencies in the meantime. Two liberal justices – Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson – publicly dissented. Jackson offered a brief explanation, questioning the need for the high court to enter into the case on an emergency basis. The full implications of the ruling are not clear given that a federal judge in Maryland earlier this month issued a preliminary injunction that reinstated some of the employees not covered in the case before the Supreme Court. Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said that the decision was a relatively limited one. 'All that the court said here is that the nonprofit organizations who obtained an injunction in San Francisco weren't the right parties to challenge the mass firings,' he said. 'It's another win for Trump, but once again only with regard to who can and can't sue, and in which courts. Other challenges to the mass firings have already resulted in rulings against the government in other cases, and those remain in place.' Still, the decision was a win for the Trump administration, which had asked the high court to step into the case to toss out the lower court's order. It came a day after the court also allowed the administration to continue deportations under the controversial Alien Enemies Act – though with some new limitations added. In its effort to slash the size of the federal government, the Trump administration has targeted probationary workers because they have fewer job protections and can be dismissed more easily. While those employees generally cannot appeal their termination to the Merit Systems Protection Board, they may do so if the action stemmed from 'partisan political reasons' or 'marriage status.' In the case at hand, labor unions and other groups had challenged the Office of Personnel Management's role in the firings, which affected thousands of employees and sent shockwaves through various federal agencies, some of which later rehired some of the workers. US District Judge William Alsup, nominated by President Bill Clinton, ordered the administration to 'immediately' offer over 16,000 probationary employees their jobs back. 'Each agency had (and still has) discretion to hire and fire its own employees,' Alsup wrote in his opinion. 'Here, the agencies were directed by OPM to fire all probationary employees, and they executed that directive. To staunch the irreparable harms to organizational plaintiffs caused by OPM unlawfully slashing other agency's staff required immediately reinstating those employees.' But Trump framed the case as another example of the federal judiciary stepping in to manage the decisions it says should be left to the executive branch. 'The district court's extraordinarily overbroad remedy is now inflicting ongoing, irreparable harm on the Executive Branch that warrants this Court's urgent intervention,' Sarah Harris, who was then the administration's acting solicitor general, told the Supreme Court. This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN
06-03-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Takeaways from the Supreme Court's early rulings on Trump's budget cuts and firing power
A pair of rulings have exposed deep divisions on the Supreme Court about just how much power the federal judiciary has to stop President Donald Trump – and could have enormous implications for the flood of litigation challenging Trump's actions. Wednesday, a 5-4 majority of the high court let stand a lower court ruling that required the Trump administration to quickly spend nearly $2 billion in foreign aid. In a strongly worded dissent, four conservative justices – and only four – framed that decision as rewarding 'an act of judicial hubris.' Previously, the court rejected Trump's request to immediately fire the head of a government watchdog agency, Hampton Dellinger, in a decision that temporarily left him in place. Exactly how far the Supreme Court will go toward backstopping lower courts, which are issuing a broad range of rulings forcing the Trump administration to take specific actions or blocking actions it has taken, will be critical as judges weigh the president's moves to fire the leaders of independent agencies, freeze billions in spending and rewrite DEI policies, among other things. 'In both of the rulings the court has handed down so far, we've seen the justices step quite gingerly – but, in both cases, in ways that have not given the Trump administration what it's asked for,' said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center. But even though the court's rulings are preliminary and don't directly address underlying questions about a president's power under the Constitution, they can have significant political and real-world impacts. Here's what to know: In more ways than one, the Supreme Court's order Wednesday was exceedingly modest. In an unsigned, single paragraph, the court dispensed with a request from the Trump administration to cancel a deadline that had already passed a week ago. US District Judge Amir Ali in Washington, DC, had previously ordered Trump to unfreeze $2 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid. When the nonprofit groups that rely on that money claimed Trump officials were slow walking the spending, Ali ordered Trump to turn the flow of cash back on by 11:59 pm ET on February 26. Trump appealed that temporary order to the Supreme Court, which said the administration is still on the hook for the $2 billion. However, it sent the case back to the judge to determine what's next, given that Ali's previous deadline passed last week and he has a hearing scheduled for Thursday. The district court, the Supreme Court majority said, 'should clarify what obligations the government must fulfill' and consider 'the feasibility of any compliance timelines.' That line, notably, assumes that lower courts have some power to order Trump to spend the money. And by denying Trump's request – rather than dismissing it – the majority may have been signaling that lower courts can impose some sort of a deadline on a president to act. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett – both conservatives – joined with the court's three liberals in the majority that essentially upheld Ali's order. Their take stood in sharp contrast with the dissent's view of the power of lower courts to tell a president to wait. There were only four votes for Justice Samuel Alito's proposition that Ali had vastly overstepped his authority by requiring Trump to spend the money by the deadline. Alito described Ali's order as an indication of 'self-aggrandizement.' He was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. 'Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars?' Alito wrote. 'The answer to that question should be an emphatic 'No.'' Looking forward to other cases, the dissent may provide a roadmap for other judges who want to defer to a president's power. But, for now, the majority's reasoning is likely to give lower courts a sense that the Supreme Court will have their back if they decide to temporarily block Trump. That majority included two of three justices often seen as sitting at the court's ideological center – Roberts and Barrett – and it underscores the power both will have over the president's second-term agenda. Late last month, the Supreme Court also blocked Trump's effort to immediately fire the head of an independent agency that investigates whistleblower claims, Dellinger. There, the court essentially punted on the question – waiting for the lower courts to weigh the legality of Trump's dismissal. In that case, two conservative justices – Gorsuch and Alito – questioned the power of the lower court judge to temporarily reinstate Dellinger in the first place. 'The court effectively commanded the president and other executive branch officials to recognize and work with someone whom the president sought to remove from office,' Gorsuch wrote, adding that courts had no such power at the time of the nation's founding. But the majority, which again included Roberts and Barrett, declined to embrace that understanding. 'One plausible reading of today's ruling and the ruling in the Hampton Dellinger case is something of a yellow light to district courts – not to stop what they're doing in these cases, but to exercise caution, and to go out of their way to be hyper specific and overly careful in each of their rulings going forward,' Vladeck said. Federal courts have handed down a series of temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions that bar Trump from taking certain actions, such as freezing funding or firing independent workers. Temporary restraining orders, generally, are not appealable – although Trump has repeatedly tried – and are intended to freeze action for a few days to a couple of weeks to give a court time to review written arguments and schedule hearings. They don't settle the merits of the dispute – a process that can take months or years. Preliminary injunctions are more durable – they require a more thorough review by a court – and can bar Trump from taking some actions indefinitely. They are also regularly appealed, including to the Supreme Court. Last weekend, the federal judge overseeing Dellinger's case issued a permanent injunction that said he is entitled to remain in his position. The Justice Department is pressing the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to put that ruling on hold, and it's likely that the intermediate court's decision on that request will also end up before the Supreme Court in short order. In practical terms, it's unclear how quickly the groups seeking to have their federal funds restored will actually see the money. 'The government must apparently pay the $2 billion posthaste – not because the law requires it, but simply because a district judge so ordered,' Alito wrote. Hours after the high court issued its order, Ali directed both the Trump administration and the groups suing over the funds to submit a joint report by Thursday that proposes a schedule for the government 'to come into compliance' with his initial order that the funds continue to flow to the groups. The report, Ali said, must also include details to 'address steps taken' by the administration to unfreeze the funds during the period before the Supreme Court temporarily halted his deadline as it considered Trump's emergency appeal. The judge said he wanted to see 'specificity with respect to milestones and timelines for (the administration) coming into compliance' with his earlier order. In the meantime, at least one of the groups that challenged the administration's efforts to freeze foreign aid said that while it was encouraged by the Supreme Court's decision, 'irreparable damage' has already been done by the government's actions. The effects 'have been immediate and devastating,' said Mark Hetfield, the president of HIAS, a Maryland-based nonprofit that provides services to refugees, asylum seekers and others. 'The stop-work orders that HIAS received from the State Department affect 450,000 of our clients around the world,' he added, affecting 'immediate and life-saving programs.' Ali is set to hear arguments on Thursday over a request by the groups for a preliminary injunction, a more substantial ruling that would indefinitely block the administration from enforcing Trump's executive orders pausing foreign aid. That order, too, will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court.
