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Published : 06 May 2025, 01:51 AM
The US Supreme Court has acted in a series of cases involving challenges to executive orders signed by President Donald Trump and actions by his administration since he returned to office in Jan. The cases have involved deportations, protected status for certain migrants, Trump's move to restrict automatic birthright citizenship, his transgender military ban, firings of federal workers and certain agency officials, cuts to teacher training grants, payments to foreign aid organisations and access to Social Security data.
Here is a look at these cases.
BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP
The justices decided to hear arguments on May 15 over Trump's bid to broadly enforce his executive order to restrict automatic birthright citizenship, a key pillar of his hardline approach toward immigration. The court did not immediately act on a request by Trump's administration to narrow the scope of three nationwide injunctions issued by federal judges that halted his executive order while the matter is litigated.
Trump's order directed federal agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born in the United States who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident. In a series of lawsuits, plaintiffs including Democratic state attorneys general, immigrant rights advocates and some expectant mothers argued that Trump's order violates a right enshrined in the US Constitution's 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868, that provides that anyone born in the United States is a citizen.
DEPORTATION OF VENEZUELANS
The court on Apr 19 temporarily barred Trump's administration from deporting Venezuelan men in immigration custody after their lawyers said they were at imminent risk of removal without the judicial review previously mandated by the justices. The administration has described the Venezuelans as members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang, which the State Department as designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Family members and lawyers for the migrants have disputed this allegation.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union had filed urgent requests in multiple courts, including the Supreme Court, urging immediate action after reporting that some of the men were loaded onto buses and told they would be deported. The ACLU said the rapid developments meant the administration was poised to deport the men using a 1798 law called the Alien Enemies Act that historically has been employed only in wartime without affording them a realistic opportunity to contest their removal - as the Supreme Court had previously required. Trump invoked the law as part of his hardline approach to immigration.
The Supreme Court on Apr 7 issued a decision allowing the administration to remove Venezuelan migrants under the Alien Enemies Act but specified that "notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs." Habeas corpus relief refers to the right of detainees to challenge the legality of their detention. It is considered a bedrock right under US law.
PROTECTED STATUS FOR VENEZUELAN MIGRANTS
The administration on May 1 asked the court to allow it to strip temporary protected status from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants, a move that would clear the way for their deportation. The Justice Department asked the justices to put on hold US District Judge Edward Chen's order that halted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's decision to terminate the temporary legal status previously was granted to some Venezuelans by former President Joe Biden's administration.
Chen said Noem's actions appear to have been predicated on "negative stereotypes" by insinuating the migrants were criminals. "Generalisation of criminality to the Venezuelan TPS population as a whole is baseless and smacks of racism predicated on generalised false stereotypes," Chen wrote, adding that Venezuelan TPS holders were more likely to hold bachelor's degrees than American citizens and less likely to commit crimes than the general US population.
WRONGLY DEPORTED SALVADORAN MAN
The court on Apr 10 directed the administration to facilitate the return to the United States of a Salvadoran man who the US government has acknowledged was deported in error to El Salvador. The Justice Department had asked the justices to throw out an Apr 4 order by US District Judge Paula Xinis requiring the administration to "facilitate and effectuate" the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Xinis had issued the order in response to a lawsuit by Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who was living in Maryland and has had a work permit since 2019, and his family challenging the legality of his deportation.
The court said that the judge's order "properly requires the government to 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador." While siding with Abrego Garcia, the court told Xinis to clarify the order's requirement to "effectuate" his return "with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs."
Abrego Garcia was stopped and detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on Mar 12 and questioned about alleged affiliation with the criminal gang MS-13, which the State Department has designated as a foreign terrorist organisation. His lawyers have denied the alleged gang affiliation. He was deported on Mar 15 on one of three deportation flights to El Salvador that also included Venezuelan migrants. El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, said during a meeting with Trump on Apr 14 that he had no plans to return Abrego Garcia to the United States.
TRANSGENDER MILITARY BAN
The administration asked the court on Apr 24 to allow implementation of his executive order banning transgender people from serving in the US military, one of a series of Trump directives to curb transgender rights. The Justice Department requested that the justices lift Seattle-based US District Judge Benjamin Settle's nationwide order blocking the military from carrying out Trump's prohibition on transgender service members while a legal challenge to the policy proceeds.
Settle found that Trump's order likely violates the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment right to equal protection under the law. The Justice Department said Settle had usurped the authority of the government's branch of government - headed by Trump - to determine who may serve in the armed forces, and said the Pentagon is owed "substantial deference" on its "professional military judgments."
In the case before Settle, seven active-duty transgender troops, a transgender man seeking to enlist and a civil rights advocacy group sued over the ban. In a separate case, US District Judge Ana Reyes also issued a nationwide injunction blocking Trump's ban while that litigation proceeds.
LABOR BOARD OFFICIALS
The court on Apr 9 cleared the way for Trump to remove Democratic members of two federal labour boards for the time being, putting on hold a pair of judicial orders that had shielded them from dismissal. The court halted the orders by two federal judges that blocked Trump's firing of Cathy Harris from the Merit Systems Protection Board and Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board before their terms expire. The court's action, called an administrative stay, gave it additional time to consider the administration's formal request to block the judges' orders while litigation over the firings continues.
The legal fight over these firings has emerged as an important test of Trump's efforts to bring under his sway federal agencies meant by Congress to be independent from the president's direct control. It could also prompt the justices to rein in or overrule a 1935 Supreme Court precedent ensuring job protections for certain agency officials. The dispute, for instance, has potential implications for the independence of the US Federal Reserve.
TEACHER TRAINING GRANTS
The justices on Apr 4 allowed Trump's administration to proceed with millions of dollars of cuts to teacher training grants - part of his crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The court put on hold US District Judge Myong Joun's Mar 10 order requiring the Department of Education to reinstate in eight Democratic-led states funding for grants under two teacher training programs while a legal challenge by the states continues. The court said that the administration is "likely to succeed in showing the district court lacked jurisdiction to order the payment of money," as occurred in this case.
The states sued after the Department of Education announced that it had cut $600 million in teacher training funds that were promoting what it called "divisive ideologies" including diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or DEI.
The Teacher Quality Partnership and Supporting Effective Educator grant programs were established to help support institutions that recruit and train educators in a bid to address critical teacher shortages, especially in rural and underserved communities.
PAYMENT TO FOREIGN AID GROUPS
The court on Mar 5 declined to let the administration withhold payment to foreign aid organizations for work they already performed for the government as Trump moves to pull the plug on American humanitarian projects around the world. The court upheld US District Judge Amir Ali's order that had called on the administration to promptly release funding to contractors and recipients of grants from the US Agency for International Development and the State Department for their past work.
Aid organisations accused Trump in lawsuits of exceeding his authority under federal law and the US Constitution by effectively dismantling an independent federal agency in USAID and canceling spending authorised by Congress.
FIRED FEDERAL EMPLOYEES
The justices on Apr 8 blocked a judge's order for the administration to rehire thousands of fired employees, acting in one dispute over Trump's efforts to slash the federal workforce and dismantle parts of the government. The court put on hold US Judge William Alsup's Mar 13 injunction requiring six federal agencies to reinstate thousands of recently hired probationary employees while litigation challenging the legality of the dismissals continues. Alsup's ruling applied to probationary employees at the US Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Energy, Interior and Treasury. Probationary workers typically have less than a year of service in their current roles, though some are longtime federal employees in serving new roles.
SOCIAL SECURITY DATA
The administration asked the court on May 2 to allow the entity called the Department of Government Efficiency, spearheaded by Trump's billionaire ally Elon Musk, unfettered access to Social Security Administration data of millions of Americans. The Justice Department asked the justices to put on hold US District Judge Ellen Hollander's order that halted the agency from giving DOGE access after she found that the data-sharing arrangement likely violated a federal privacy law. DOGE has been instrumental in Trump's actions to downsize and reshape the federal government. Two labor unions and an advocacy group sued to stop DOGE members from accessing some of the Social Security Administration's most sensitive data systems.
FIRED WATCHDOG AGENCY HEAD
The court on Feb 21 declined to let Trump immediately fire the head of a federal watchdog agency after a judge's order had temporarily blocked the president from ousting the official. The court postponed action on the Justice Department's request to lift US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson's Feb 12 order that had temporarily blocked Trump's removal of Hampton Dellinger as head of the Office of Special Counsel while litigation continued in the dispute. Dellinger on March 6 ended his legal challenge to his firing after the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit allowed Trump's action to stand. The independent agency protects government whistleblowers.
