by Jordan Rubin | Jun 26, 2026 | Deadline: Legal Blog, Supreme Court, White House
“What are the most significant Supreme Court cases to watch this term?” — John
Hi John,
The court has already issued several significant rulings this term — on tariffs, voting rights, immigration and more.
At this point, there are only eight cases left to decide, and they include some of the most consequential disputes. We could get decisions in any of them, though not likely all of them, when the justices next take the bench on Monday morning.
The court usually issues the term’s final rulings by the end of June or early July. Chief Justice John Roberts has a custom of announcing on the second-to-last day that the next opinion day will be the final one. But he made no such announcement when the latest batch of rulings came on Thursday, so it seems there will be at least one more opinion day after Monday.
Birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara
When President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, he signed an executive order that purports to end automatic citizenship for babies born in this country. The order hasn’t taken effect because it’s “blatantly unconstitutional,” as one of the several judges who ruled against Trump in the lower courts observed.
Now, the Supreme Court must decide whether to maintain the status quo or to green-light one of the president’s most lawless moves yet. Trump himself has said he thinks the Republican-controlled court will rule against him as it did in the tariffs case.
Presidential firing power over independent agencies in Trump v. Slaughter
This is another big case, but Trump is expected to win it. The court is considering whether he can fire Democratic
by Steve Benen | Jun 26, 2026 | immigration, Maddowblog, News, Politics, Supreme Court
Around this time 10 years ago, when Florida was still seen as a competitive battleground state, Donald Trump campaigned in Miami and spent some time at the Little Haiti Cultural Center, stressing the “common values” he shared with Haitian Americans.
“Whether you vote for me or not,” the then-candidate said at the time, “I really want to be your biggest champion.”
A year later, he scrapped temporary status protection for Haitians who were allowed entry to the U.S. following a devastating earthquake in 2010.
A year after that, the Republican hosted a White House meeting and referred to Haiti as a “s—hole” country.
Six years after that, Trump based part of his 2024 presidential campaign on racist and false claims about Haitians in Ohio eating household pets.
And two years after that, a full decade after he stressed the “common values” he shared with Haitian Americans and vowed to be the community’s “biggest champion,” the Republican took steps to eliminate temporary status protection for hundreds of thousands of Haitians currently living legally in the United States.
The move sparked a court fight, culminating in a predictable ruling from the high court’s conservative majority. MS NOW’s Jordan Rubin explained:
The Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed majority sided with the Trump administration over Haitians and Syrians on Thursday in a ruling on the administration’s attempt to end humanitarian safeguards under the Temporary Protected Status program.
Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion curbed the power of courts to review government decisions to terminate protections under the TPS program. For this case, the majority said that means Haitians and Syrians aren’t entitled to orders keeping their protections in place while their litigation proceeds, even though
by Chris Walker | Jun 25, 2026 | Asylum, Elena Kagan, immigration, News, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court, Temporary Protected Status
The conservative-controlled U.S. Supreme Court rendered two anti-immigration decisions on Thursday, allowing the Trump administration to turn away asylum seekers at the border and stripping hundreds of thousands of people of temporary protected status. In a case titled Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, the court sided with a Trump administration policy to turn away asylum seekers at the U.S.
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by Carey Gillam | Jun 25, 2026 | Bayer, Cancer, EPA, herbicide, Monsanto, News, Supreme Court
The US Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the former Monsanto company in a closely watched case that limits people’s ability to sue pesticide companies for alleged illnesses or injuries. The decision was made in a 7-2 split, with Justice Brett Kavanaughoffering the majority opinion and Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson writing the dissenting opinion. The case, Monsanto v Durnell…
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by Jordan Rubin | Jun 25, 2026 | Deadline: Legal Blog, Supreme Court
Supreme Court justices are set to take the bench Thursday morning to announce their latest rulings in cases argued this term. They won’t say which ones are coming ahead of time, but among the remaining rulings are ones on birthright citizenship and other consequential decisions for America’s future.
Yet all Americans won’t see or even hear the justices as they make these important announcements in open court.
The opinions will be posted on the court’s website as the justices summarize them. But that doesn’t excuse the court’s lack of transparency.
Think about the birthright citizenship case, for example, to understand why the court’s practice does not make sense. When it was argued in April, anyone with internet access could tune in live to hear the audio of the hearing in real time. When the resulting ruling is announced, however, there will be no such live audio, even though both the hearing and the opinion announcement will happen in the same public courtroom. It’s not a technological obstacle.
Nor does the court view opinion announcements as so sensitive that no one can hear them, because these sessions are open to however many people can fit into the courtroom on a given day. Nor does the court view opinion announcements as so sensitive that everyone can’t hear them eventually, because the audio is typically published at some point during the following court term. It’s only that the court does not want everyone to be able to tune in live for these announcements in the same way that it lets people tune in for hearings.
What could possibly justify the court’s selective transparency?
A common attempt at an explanation
by Chris Walker | Jun 24, 2026 | Damon Landor, First Amendment, News, Rastafarian spiritual movement, Religion, Religious Freedom, Supreme Court
In a Monday morning decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a formerly incarcerated individual, denying his right to sue the state of Louisiana for violating his Rastafarian beliefs by forcibly shaving his hair. The case is notable in that, while this iteration of the high court has made numerous decisions defending right-wing Christians’ purported First Amendment religious freedoms…
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