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EMERGENCY DOCKET

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

By Amy Howe on May 19 at 3:02 p.m.

In an order on Monday afternoon, the justices paused a district court ruling that had blocked the Trump administration from terminating deportation protection for over 300,000 Venezuelan citizens living in the United States. The order left open the possibility of Venezuelans bringing individual challenges.

The ceiling over the Supreme Court building entrance

The Trump administration asked the justices to lift a court order barring the government from terminating a portion of the TPS designation for Venezuelans. (Mark Fischer via Flickr)

IN MEMORIAM

The quiet radicalism of Justice Souter

By Charles Barzun on May 20 at 10:55 am

To honor Justice David Souter, who died on May 8, we are publishing a series of tributes on his legacy and jurisprudence. Charles Barzun reflects on Souter’s efforts to reason through hard legal questions. For Souter, he writes, any assessment of the facts and legal principles of a case reflects our values, and our values reflect the society in which we live. In Souter’s writing, social change, moral values, and legal reasoning all came together.

ARGUMENT ANALYSIS

No clear decision emerges from arguments on judges’ power to block Trump’s birthright citizenship order

By Amy Howe on May 15 at 4:21 pm

During over two hours of oral arguments on Thursday, in a case involving President Donald Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship, no clear picture emerged of how the justices will resolve a dispute over whether federal judges can issue nationwide orders to block a policy as legal challenges move through lower courts.

OPINION ANALYSIS

Court revives excessive force suit against officer in deadly Houston-area traffic stop

By Amy Howe on May 16 at 1:59 pm

A unanimous court rejected a doctrine used to throw out a civil rights suit brought against a police officer who shot and killed 24-year-old Ashtian Barnes during a traffic stop in 2016. The lower court had examined only the two seconds leading up to Barnes’s death to determine if the officer had used excessive force and thrown out the case. Indeed, Justice Kagan observed, it is so clear that the 5th Circuit’s rule is wrong that even the officer himself does not dispute it.

Advocates in Conversation

2024-Jan-Snow-Banner-4B-scaled
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu discusses City and County of San Francisco v. EPA, in which the court is considering whether the Environmental Protection Agency violates the Clean Water Act when it imposes generic prohibitions in a permit for a city’s water discharges, without specifying explicit standards for discharges.   
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WHAT WE’RE READING

The morning read for Tuesday, May 20

By Zachary Shemtob on May 20, 2025

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

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.

WHAT WE’RE READING

The morning read for Monday, May 19

By Zachary Shemtob on May 19, 2025

Hi, everyone! I am very excited to be joining SCOTUSblog as its executive editor. Please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected], even if just to say hello.

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

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.

EMERGENCY DOCKET

Trump asks justices to lift judge’s order pausing mass federal layoffs

By Amy Howe on May 16, 2025

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.

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EMERGENCY DOCKET

Supreme Court again bars Trump from removing Venezuelan nationals

By Amy Howe on May 16, 2025

The Supreme Court on Friday afternoon extended its ban on the removal from the United States of Venezuelan men currently in immigration custody in the northern region of Texas. In an eight-page unsigned opinion, the justices sent the case back to a federal appeals court for another look and blocked the Trump administration from removing any of the men from the United States under an 18th-century wartime law until the appeals are resolved. 

The court instructed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to determine the kind of procedures to which detainees are entitled to challenge the removals. But it indicated that the procedures that the government used in April, when it was ready to carry out removals before the Supreme Court stepped in, were not enough to satisfy the Constitution’s guarantee of fair treatment. 

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WHAT WE’RE READING

The morning read for Friday, May 16

By Ellena Erskine on May 16, 2025

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