The Supreme Court has handed President Donald Trump a series of preliminary wins in recent months as his administration fights off more than 100 lawsuits from states, nonprofits, and others.
From federal workers to spending cuts, Trump was able to get some initial relief from lower court orders blocking his agenda. Out of 10 emergency appeals to the nation’s highest court, Trump lost two, got some relief in five, and is still waiting on three.
Most recently, the Supreme Court said on April 10 that a federal judge in Maryland could require the administration to facilitate the return of a man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to El Salvador. In a related case, however, the Supreme Court said a lawsuit against Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport members of the Tren de Aragua gang was brought in the wrong court.
Other decisions in April saw the Supreme Court removing blocks on the administration’s decision to fire probationary workers, his attempt to cut Education Department grants related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Another halted district court orders requiring Trump reinstate two the heads of two executive labor boards.
The rulings were largely preliminary or responses to the Trump administration’s requests for emergency relief from injunctions by lower courts. Meanwhile, the administration is still waiting on a set of appeals challenging district courts’ use of nationwide injunctions to halt his birthright citizenship order.
While the justices offered some legal reasoning, many major questions remain. The Supreme Court was relatively limited, for example, in its decision on probationary employees in that it vacated a lower court injunction based on their finding the plaintiffs whose allegations informed the original injunction didn’t have standing.
The Supreme Court also indicated that some of the lawsuits against Trump’s spending cuts may have been brought to courts that lack jurisdiction to hear them. In its decision on the education grants, it pointed to a federal law granting the Court of Federal Claims jurisdiction over contract disputes with the government.
A separate spending case brought a loss for Trump in March when the Supreme Court refused to block a lower court order requiring the administration to disburse foreign assistance funds. That decision and others revealed divides among the justices, including among the six usually considered to be more conservative.
Both the chief justice and Justice Amy Coney Barrett voted against blocking that lower court order while Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas joined a strongly worded defense. In it, Alito wrote that he was stunned by his colleagues’ decision and said the district judge “likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the government of the United States to pay out [and probably lose forever] 2 billion taxpayer dollars.”
The three liberal justices have issued opinions criticizing their colleagues for acting too quickly rather than thoroughly considering the legal issues. Quoting Justice Elena Kagan in the education grants case, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in an April 7 dissent that the court proceeded with “bare-bones briefing, no argument, and scarce time for reflection.”
—Sam Dorman
BOOKMARKS
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced on Tuesday that it has axed a $3.1 billion climate-related farming program involving 135 projects spread across all 50 states. The department issued a statement saying it conducted a thorough review of the program, and “it became clear that the majority of these projects had sky-high administration fees, which in many instances provided less than half of the federal funding directly to farmers.”
Arkansas and Indiana are looking to make candy and soft drinks ineligible for purchase using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds, aka food stamps. Noting that one-third of her state’s population has diabetes or is pre-diabetic, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: “It’s important for us to examine a system that actively encourages and subsidizes unhealthy, highly processed, addictive products.”
Authorities have arrested Aliakbar Mohammad Amin of Lilburn, Georgia, after he sent a series of text messages threatening to kill Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and her husband. Amin confessed to making the threats under FBI interrogation, saying he was motivated by U.S. foreign policy in Gaza.
Trump is floating the idea of deporting some American citizens who have committed egregious crimes, but said he would have to look at the legality of such a move. “I don’t know what the laws are … but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters,” Trump said.
The Department of Commerce is pulling out of a 2019 trade agreement with Mexico, and will add a 20.9 percent tariff on that country’s tomatoes in an effort to allow U.S. producers a chance to compete. The department said the previous agreement failed to prevent other countries from “dumping” products—i.e. selling large volume at deliberately undercut prices–into the U.S. economy.
—Stacy Robinson
