Immigration Heavy Docket Reflects Trump Priorities

Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson, Bloomberg Law Supreme Court reporter Kimberly. Last week, the Court agreed to take up another immigration case, this involving crime as well as immigration. Tell us about it well. The Supreme Court has taken up a number of these so called crimmigration cases. That is, cases that touch both on crime and immigration areas of the law that really

intersect quite a bit. Now, the issue here is what crimes can bar these really long time non citizens from relief from deportation, And in particular, the question is where that individual was convicted under a state law that prohibits some actions that would be disqualifying for that relief and some that are not does that ambiguity preclude the immigrant from seeking relief from deportation. So tell us a little

bit about this case in particular. Put in context. Well, the man here has actually been in the United States since the nineteen nineties and enter the country illegally, but has been living in the country since that time, has raised a family here, but was convicted under a Kansas

law for using a fake Social Security number to get employment. Now, this is the kind of person for which relief would generally be considered from deportation, but the Kansas law does have that kind of ambiguity where it's not clear if all of the actions would disqualify them from that relief. And so the lower courts are really split on that question, and the Supreme Court has decided to take it up. So this is the ninth immigration case the justices are

going to consider this term. How does that compare to a typical docket. Well, that's really a very immigration heavy docket. And so we've seen in past years, especially recently in the Supreme Court really taking on a lot of these immigration cases just like this one that are really technical because the immigration laws are now very technical laws. But

typically they take up about three to five cases. So nine cases is quite a lot, especially given the facts that the Supreme Court is still adding cases to its docket this term. So we'll see how the court sorts out these issues. But it's notable just the number of immigration topics that they're tackling this here. What are the range of issues in these immigration cases. Well, they really,

you know, run the gamut of immigration laws. So we have laws like this that are very technical that are going to be you know, applicable only to a few individuals, and then we have other laws that are going to be applicable in different kinds of immigration cases, and those really deal with how much courts can review lower immigration decisions.

This is an issue that we've seen play out in things like the travel ban, where the Trump administration said, you know, federal courts don't have a role to play in these kinds of immigration questions. So really quite the spread of immigration cases this term is the immigration heavy docket reflective of President Trump's crackdown on immigration or change in immigration policy. Well, that probably depends on who you ask.

People who are critical of the presidents say that him and his administration have really been focusing on enforcement of immigration laws and using creative ways to try and deport more people and to try to prohibit or encourage people

not to try to come to the United States. On the other hand, people who are supportive of the Trump administration say that it's really the federal courts who are stepping into immigration law in a way that they shouldn't, and they really bring Congress for failing to kind of fill in some of these more technical questions and leaving courts to feel like they have to step in instead.

There must be more litigation though in the immigration area, with all the rule changes and policy changes, there certainly is, and so, as I said, it's probably a matter of who you ask, but in reality it's probably a little

bit true both sides. In your article, you quoted from Andrew Arthur, a resident fellow in Law and Policy at the Center of Immigration Studies, and he said that immigration has always been a hot button issue, right, And you know, I think what he was referring to is the fact that, you know, these immigration cases often tend to be emotional cases, and so there's something that often are very high profile.

Earlier this term, the Supreme Court heard the litigation over deferred deportation for dreamers, which again is a very emotional matter even though it is a legal question that's before the justices. But again, you know, we are seeing more immigration cases at the High Court this term. So while it's always been a big issue, this term, you know it's even bigger. How many cases, if you know, has the Solicitor General asked the Justice is to take in

the immigration arena? Well, I don't have the exact numbers, but there are a number of these cases, and in fact, a number of the nine cases that the Supreme Court has already agreed to here have come from the Solicitor General's office. And those are really cases where the justices are more inclined to take up the case because it

is a request from the federal government. Usually it involves a lower court striking down a part of an immigration law or interpreting it in a way that the federal government says it will create harm to immigration laws and to its enforcement and ultimately to national security. The data case got a lot of publicity. Which way the justices

seem to be leaning in that case. Well, it's always really hazardous to try and guess what the justices are going to do, and then when you do it's always goes the other way, but at least for moral arguments

than the questions that the justices asked. There it looked like a majority of the justices were going to let the Trump administration wind down the doctor program, which has deferred deportations for hundreds of thousands of Americans or immigrants who came to the United States when they were younger. So again, it's just a guess, but that was the way it would look like it was heading to. Immigration

cases tend to divide the court ideologically. Well, it really depends on what kind of immigration cases you're talking about. The cases like DOCCA that involved more policy questions. Yes, they often do divide the justices along ideological lines. And you know, that really boils down to how much power the justices think that the executive should have and how

much power they think that the judiciary should have. But in these more technical cases, we often see either a lot of unanimous decisions or divided opinions that don't follow along ideological lines. We've seen that a lot. Actually from Trump's first appointee to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorcich, who has actually crossed over on some of these commigration issues, and ruled in flavor of immigrants with his more liberal colleagues.

These nine cases and perhaps more, are they likely to have an impact on immigration law or are the issues refined well? In some cases they are very discrete issues that will probably only affect a few people. There really aren't that many people who have been living in the country for decades and decades who are then convicted under these ambiguous statues, like in the cases that I was talking about the court recently granting. But there are others

that are going to have broader effects. And again, these are really cases that deal with how much courts can be involved in immigration decisions and how much they have to stay out of it and just leave it to the executive. Thanks Kimberly. That's Kimberly Strong brid Robinson, Bloomberg Law, Supreme Court Reporter. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso.

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