Supreme Court allows Trump to end protected status for group of Venezuelan nationals

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Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Monday morning read:

• Courting Controversy: Justices’ side commentaries undermine the Supreme Court (Jonathan Turley, The Hill)
• Supreme Court Retains Block on Using Wartime Law to Deport Venezuelans (Abbie VanSickle, The New York Times)
• The Supreme Court just got an important police violence case right (Ian Millhiser, Vox)
• ‘Spaghetti against the wall?’ Trump tests legal strategies as judges block his policies (Bart Jansen, USA Today)
• Alito and Roberts take stock as they near their third decade on the bench (Joan Biskupic, CNN)

Coming up: On Thursday, May 22, the court expects to issue one or more opinions from the current term. We’ll be live at 9:30 a.m. EDT that day for the opinions.

The Trump administration came to the Supreme Court on Friday afternoon, asking the justices to temporarily block an order by a federal judge in San Francisco that bars the Trump administration from implementing an executive order and a related memorandum calling for large-scale reductions in the federal workforce – the elimination of jobs, followed by the transfer or firing of the employees who did those jobs. 

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the court that the order by Senior U.S. District Judge Susan Illston has “caused mass confusion throughout the Executive Branch.” “Neither Congress nor the Executive Branch has ever intended to make federal bureaucrats ‘a class with lifetime employment, whether there was work for them to do or not,’” Sauer wrote.

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Friday morning read:

• Supreme Court could block Trump’s birthright citizenship order but limit nationwide injunctions (Mark Sherman & Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press)
• Supreme Court sides with family of man killed by police after he was pulled over for toll violations (John Fritze, CNN)
• Supreme Court Rejects ‘Moment of Threat’ Limit in Excessive Force Suits (Adam Liptak, The New York Times)
• Trump’s birthright order gets frosty reception, but justices appear ready to limit nationwide blocks (Josh Gerstein & Hassan Ali Kanu, Politico)
• The Abrego Garcia Boomerang at the Supreme Court (The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board)

Today the court will hear arguments in Trump v. CASA and its consolidated cases, plucked from the emergency docket for oral arguments about nationwide injunctions and the president’s executive order on birthright citizenship.
 
Before the arguments get started, Chief Justice John Roberts has some recognition planned for the late Justice David Souter, who died last week at age 85.
 
As things turn out this morning, I will have my own unorthodox and unplanned tribute to Souter, in particular the day in January 1996 when Souter was late to the bench for an oral argument. I am late to court today because of the growing rush-hour traffic (thanks to return-to-office orders for federal employees) and yet another demonstration right on my route to the court.

This article is part of a series on the legacy and jurisprudence of the late Justice David Souter. 

Michael Mongan currently serves as the California Solicitor General. He clerked for Justice David Souter from 2007 to 2008.

In the days since Justice Souter passed away, I’ve struggled to assemble words that convey the depth of my feelings about him.

Some portion of that difficulty might be attributed to the private and humble manner in which he lived his life. He generally avoided making public remarks outside the courtroom (with a few notable exceptions, like his outstanding speech at Harvard in 2010). He spent much of his time and energy in the confines of his judicial chambers, along with those lucky few whom he hired to serve as clerks and assistants. Many of the deeds and remarks that define him in my mind arose in that confidential setting and will go with me and my colleagues to our graves.