On Tuesday, all Christmas parties Department of Homeland Security v. New York, a lawsuit that challenges a Trump-era policy targeting low-income immigrants, asked the Supreme Court to close the case. The Court responded promptly to that request, removing from consideration one of the most contentious cases that the judges planned to hear this year.
This is the third time in just over a month that a major immigration case has gone up in smoke. In early February, the Court granted requests to remove two cases – Mayorkas v. Innovation Law Lab and Biden v. Sierra Club – of your schedule of arguments.
THE Innovation Law Laboratory The case challenged Trump’s “stay in Mexico” policy, which forced tens of thousands of asylum seekers in the United States to wait in Mexico while their cases were being processed – the Biden government is revoking that policy.
Sierra Club it involved a challenge to Trump’s attempt to divert billions of dollars, appropriate for the military, to build a wall along the Mexican border. Biden signed a proclamation on his first day in office stating that “enough US taxpayer dollars [shall] be diverted to build a border wall. “
THE New York The case, however, defied the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule, which sought to prevent immigrants from entering the United States by extending their visa or obtaining a green card if immigration officials determined that a particular immigrant would likely use immigration programs. public assistance, such as food stamps or Medicaid.
Biden called for a formal review of this policy, and the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case any more should allow orders from lower courts that block the policy in much of the country to take effect.
The Court’s decision to reject the New York The case is not particularly surprising – it would be extraordinary for any court to hear a case that all parties agree should be dismissed – but it is likely to be an important victory for immigrants. Although several lower courts ruled against the public prosecution rule, the Supreme Court temporarily reinstated that rule in early 2020, voting 5-4 along party lines. And that was before the replacement of Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Judge Amy Coney Barrett to move the Court further to the right.
If the Court had issued a final decision upholding the public charge rule, future presidents could have relied on that decision to reinstate the rule, even if the Biden government abandoned it.
The Supreme Court accepted far fewer cases than normally
The anti-climate resolutions of the New York, Innovation Law Laboratories, and Sierra Club cases are a reminder that the elections have consequences: it is likely that the Supreme Court would have maintained all three policies if Trump were still in office. But the Court also planned to hear surprisingly few cases during his current term, even before the Biden government asked him to start removing cases.
Each year, the Supreme Court begins a new term in October and normally ends that term in the following June. Over the intervening months, the Court typically holds seven “sessions” – blocks of five or six days where judges will normally hear two cases a day. Thus, in a regular session, the judges will hear 10 to 12 cases.
With this deadline, however, the Court heard far fewer cases than usual. He heard only eight cases in the November session, five in the January session and six in the February session. Judges plan to hear only seven cases at the March session.
There are several possible explanations for this exceptionally slow workload. The pandemic has forced judges to close their buildings to the public and to make oral arguments remotely, and the pandemic may also have slowed the lower courts, which means that there are fewer appeals to judges.
Court members have also changed significantly in recent years – President Trump has appointed three judges during his four-year term – so judges may want to spend some time getting acquainted (and learning how their new colleagues will likely vote on important cases) before filling out your calendar with new arguments.
And judges can also feel politically vulnerable, as Congress and the White House are controlled by Democrats who are well aware of how the current 6-3 Republican majority in the Court emerged.
Shortly after the death of Judge Antonin Scalia in February 2016, Senate Republicans refused to hold a confirmation hearing for President Obama’s Supreme Court candidate, Merrick Garland – at the time, they argued that the Senate should not confirm new ones. judges during a presidential election year. But then, when Ginsburg died in September 2020, Republicans abandoned that rule. Judge Barrett was confirmed just eight days before the 2020 elections.
This prompted many Democrats to call for an aggressive response, such as adding additional seats to the court of nine courts to dilute the votes of Trump’s judges. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said “nothing is out of the question” when it comes to the Supreme Court.
Therefore, it is also possible that judges are acting discreetly to discourage Democrats from expanding the Court.
This does not mean that this term is totally dormant. Judges even heard a case seeking to revoke the Affordable Care Act, a second case that could give religious conservatives a broad and new right to discriminate against LGBTQ people, and a third case that could destroy what remains of the Voting Rights Act. the Court to render its rulings in these cases in June.
But for some reason, this has been an unusually quiet term.