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Tuesday all parties at Department of Homeland Security v. New York, a lawsuit challenging a Trump-era policy targeting low-income immigrants, has asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the case. The court quickly upheld the request, removing from its consideration one of the most contentious cases the judges were scheduled to hear this year.
This is the third time in just over a month that a major immigration case has gone up in smoke. At the beginning of February, the Court allowed the requests for the suppression of two cases – Mayorkas vs. Innovation Law Lab and Biden vs. Sierra Club – of its schedule of arguments.
The Innovation law laboratory The case challenged Trump’s “stay in Mexico” policy, which forced tens of thousands of migrants seeking asylum in the United States to wait in Mexico while their cases were processed – the administration Biden unravels this policy.
Sierra Club involved a challenge to Trump’s attempt to divert billions of dollars, intended for the military, to building a wall along the Mexican border. Biden signed a proclamation on his first day in office declaring that “more American tax dollars [shall] be diverted to build a border wall. “
The new York the case, meanwhile, challenged the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule, which sought to prevent immigrants from entering the United States, extending their visas or obtaining a green card if Immigration officers determined that a particular immigrant was likely to use public assistance programs such as food stamps or Medicaid.
Biden called for a formal review of the policy, and the Supreme Court’s decision to stop hearing the case should allow lower court orders blocking the policy across much of the country to take effect.
The court’s decision to dismiss 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 a significant victory for immigrants. Although several lower courts have ruled against the public charge rule, the Supreme Court temporarily reinstated the rule in early 2020, voting 5 to 4 depending on the party. And that was before the replacement of the late Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Judge Amy Coney Barrett moved the court further to the right.
Had the court made a final ruling upholding the public office rule, future presidents could have relied on that ruling to reinstate the rule, even if the Biden administration abandoned it.
The Supreme Court has dealt with far fewer cases than it normally does
The anti-climate resolutions of the new York, Innovation law laboratories, and Sierra Club The cases are a reminder that the election has consequences: it is likely that the Supreme Court would have upheld all three policies if Trump was still in office. But the court also planned to hear surprisingly few cases during his current tenure, even before the Biden administration asked him to start withdrawing cases.
Each year, the Supreme Court begins a new term in October and usually ends that term the following June. Over the next few months, the Court normally holds seven “sittings” – blocks of five or six days where judges will usually hear two cases per day. Thus, during an ordinary session, the judges will hear 10 to 12 cases.
This term, however, the Court has heard far fewer cases than usual. It heard only eight cases at its November sitting, five at its January sitting and six at its February sitting. The judges plan to hear just seven cases during the March session.
There are a number of possible explanations for this unusually slow workload. The pandemic has forced judges to close their buildings to the public and hold oral argument at a distance, and the pandemic may have also slowed lower courts, meaning there are fewer decisions to appeal to judges.
The composition of the Court has also changed significantly in recent years – President Trump appointed three judges during his four-year term – so judges may want to spend time getting comfortable with each other. others (and learn how their new colleagues are likely to vote in boxes) before filling their timelines with new arguments.
And judges may also feel politically vulnerable, given that Congress and the White House are both controlled by Democrats who are keenly aware of the birth of the court’s current 6-3 Republican majority.
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 nominee Merrick Garland – at the time they claimed the Senate should not confirm new judges during a presidential election year. But then, when Ginsburg died in September 2020, the Republicans abandoned that rule. Judge Barrett was confirmed just eight days before the 2020 election.
This has led many Democrats to call for an aggressive response, such as adding more seats on the nine-judge court to dilute the votes of Trump’s judges. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said “nothing is on the table” when it comes to the Supreme Court.
So it is also possible that the judges are calving to discourage Democrats from expanding the court.
That’s not to say this term is a total sleeper. Judges again heard a case to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a second case that could give religious conservatives a new right to discriminate against LGBTQ people, and a third case that could empty what remains of the law on voting rights. The court will likely render its decisions in these cases in June.
But, for some reason, this term has been unusually quiet.
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