Washington — More than 300 lawsuits challenging many of President Trump’s second-term plans and his administration’s actions have been winding through the federal courts over the past few months. But a handful now may be poised for review by the Supreme Court, or are getting close to it.
The cases involve major policies enacted by Mr. Trump in the months since he returned to the White House, and several of them have already been before the high court, though during earlier stages in the proceedings.
In those instances, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to grant it emergency relief, allowing it to enforce its immigration policies, in some instances, or terminate officials at independent agencies, in others.
In the wake of those interim decisions, lower courts have continued to hold proceedings and issue rulings addressing the merits of the Trump administration’s actions. If the Supreme Court agrees to step into these disputes, they will present the initial opportunities for the justices to address the legality of Mr. Trump’s plans.
“I’m expecting this to be the term of Trump,” Dan Epps, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said of the new Supreme Court term set to begin Oct. 6.
The justices are already set to hear blockbuster cases on redistricting, campaign finance and state laws barring transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.
Many of the disputes involving Mr. Trump’s actions test the limits of the president’s power, and rulings could have massive implications for his policies on the economy and immigration, as well as his reshaping of the executive branch.
The Trump administration has sought emergency intervention from the Supreme Court roughly two dozen times so far, and it has fared well in its bids to continue enforcing its plans while legal challenges continue.
But whether the president will prevail when the Supreme Court examines the lawfulness of his actions remains to be seen. Still, in some instances — like his efforts to fire certain executive officers — the Supreme Court has signaled that Mr. Trump may have the power to terminate members of certain independent agencies.
“What’s at stake is the country’s commitment to the rule of law,” Epps said. He added that the new term could also bring a “huge sweeping victory” for executive power, particularly if the Supreme Court finds that courts should give broad deference to the president on matters like immigration.
Tariffs
The dispute over Mr. Trump’s tariffs imposed on nearly every U.S. trading partner will be the first in which the Supreme Court will decide the legality of one of Mr. Trump’s key policies.
The high court said Tuesday that it is taking up two cases involving the global tariffs, which question whether Mr. Trump has the power to impose the sweeping duties under a federal emergency powers law. The justices will hear arguments in early November, a rapid timeline for the court.
The Justice Department had asked the Supreme Court to step into the legal battle after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled late last month that many of Mr. Trump’s tariffs issued under the emergency powers law are illegal.
The Federal Circuit divided 7-4 in finding that the law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, did not authorize the president’s global tariffs. But the duties remain in place for now, as the Federal Circuit wiped away a permanent injunction granted by a lower court that blocked the Trump administration from imposing the levies.
The dispute tests a major centerpiece of the president’s economic agenda, and the Justice Department has warned that a ruling against the government would put the frameworks of trade deals negotiated with half a dozen countries at risk.
Termination of temporary legal protections for Venezuelan migrants
Soon after Mr. Trump took office, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem took steps to end legal protections that had been granted to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants by the Biden administration through a program known as Temporary Protected Status.
In response to a lawsuit filed by the National TPS Alliance and seven individuals who were shielded from threat of deportation, a federal judge granted preliminary relief and postponed the date Noem’s plan was set to take effect.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit declined to put that decision on hold while proceedings moved forward, but the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration emergency relief, allowing Noem to end the legal protections for now.
Meanwhile, the 9th Circuit heard arguments in July on the Trump administration’s effort to terminate the TPS designation for Venezuela, and late last month, a three-judge panel sided with the plaintiffs.
The judges found that the TPS holders were likely to succeed in their argument that Noem lacked the authority to set aside an earlier extension of the program for Venezuelan migrants.
The impact of that decision, however, is limited because the interim relief granted by the Supreme Court at an earlier stage in the case is still in place.
Alien Enemies Act removals
Mr. Trump issued a proclamation in March that invoked the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport Venezuelan migrants who are suspected of being members of the gang Tren de Aragua. The Trump administration has deported hundreds of migrants it claims are gang members under the wartime law, which gives the president the authority to remove citizens of a “hostile nation” if it is engaged in an “invasion or predatory incursion” of the U.S.
A “60 Minutes” investigation found that many migrants deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act didn’t have criminal records.
The proclamation immediately sparked litigation, including two court fights that have already been up to the Supreme Court on its emergency docket. In the first case, brought in federal district court in Washington, D.C., the high court said any challenges to removals under the Alien Enemies Act must be brought in the judicial district where a migrant is being held.
But the Supreme Court also said that migrants at risk of deportation under the 1798 law must receive notice that they are subject to removal and the opportunity to challenge it.
In the wake of that decision, judges in Texas, Colorado, New York and California have blocked the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants being held in their regions.
The second case to reach the Supreme Court arose when Venezuelan migrants detained by immigration officials at a facility in the Northern District of Texas sued to challenge their removals under the Alien Enemies Act.
The high court temporarily blocked the migrants’ deportations in April and later sent the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit for further review after finding the Trump administration had not provided the migrants with enough notice — 24 hours — of their impending deportations.
The Supreme Court did not address the lawfulness of the removals under the Alien Enemies Act.
After holding additional proceedings, a divided three-judge panel on the 5th Circuit rejected Mr. Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to remove Venezuelan migrants in the Northern District of Texas. The court said in its 2-1 decision that there was no predatory incursion or invasion by Tren de Aragua — preconditions to invoking the law.
The 5th Circuit is the first appeals court to address whether Mr. Trump properly invoked the 18th century-law.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson suggested the Trump administration will appeal, saying the 5th Circuit’s decision “will not be the final say on the matter.”
Firings of members of independent agencies
Mr. Trump has spent his months back in the White House pushing the bounds of executive power, including by firing officials at independent agencies appointed by former President Joe Biden.
Mr. Trump’s attempts to remove members of the National Labor Relations Board, Merit Systems Protection Board, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Consumer Product Safety Commission and Federal Trade Commission, to name a few, have all led to legal challenges by the ousted officials.
In cases brought by Gwynne Wilcox and Cathy Harris, members of the NLRB and MSPB, respectively, a lower court ordered them to be reinstated to their roles. Federal judges in Washington, D.C., ruled their firings violated federal laws that shielded them from being terminated without cause and cited a 1935 Supreme Court decision that said Congress could enact removal protections for members of multi-member boards that met certain criteria.
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court for emergency relief allowing it to fire Wilcox and Harris while their cases proceed, and the court gave the president the green-light to remove the officials for now.
Meanwhile, the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., heard oral arguments on Mr. Trump’s bid to fire Wilcox and Harris in May but has not yet issued a decision.
But in a different case, involving Mr. Trump’s attempt to fire FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to decide whether the removal protections for members of the trade commission violate the separation of powers. The administration wants the high court to take up the dispute over Slaughter’s removal before the appeals court has ruled.
At least one justice, Brett Kavanaugh, believes it’s time for the Supreme Court to address the legality of removal restrictions for members of independent agencies. In a concurring opinion in a case involving Mr. Trump’s firing of three members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Kavanaugh said there is a “at least a fair prospect” that the Supreme Court will either narrow or overrule Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, that 1935 decision that upheld removal protections for certain executive officers.
“[W]hen the question is whether to narrow or overrule one of this Court’s precedents rather than how to resolve an open or disputed question of federal law, further percolation in the lower courts is not particularly useful because lower courts cannot alter or overrule this Court’s precedent,” he wrote.
Birthright citizenship
The president’s plan to end birthright citizenship has already been before the Supreme Court, but the justices did not address the constitutionality of his executive order. Instead, the dispute involved whether federal judges have the ability to issue nationwide injunctions, or orders that universally block enforcement of a policy beyond the plaintiffs in a case.
The high court said judges are limited in their ability to grant that sweeping relief, but left open other avenues like class-action lawsuits or challenges to an agency rule brought under the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law governing the agency rule-making process.
Following that June decision, several groups of plaintiffs amended their initial lawsuits and asked district courts to certify as classes children covered by Mr. Trump’s executive order and would be denied birthright citizenship.
In one of those cases, brought by a group of four states — Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon — a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled 2-1 in July that Mr. Trump’s executive order is unconstitutional.
The White House said in response to the decision that it looks forward to “being vindicated on appeal.”
The ruling from the 9th Circuit was the first from an appeals court to address the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s executive order.
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