Declaring that high government officials cannot be sued personally for wrongdoing in the name of national security, a divided Supreme Court on Monday spared three former top Justice Department officials from legal claims based on mistreatment of Muslims rounded up in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It is up to Congress to decide… Read More

  The Supreme Court on Monday stepped, somewhat hesitantly, into the long-standing constitutional controversy over partisan gerrymandering, accepting a major test case for review but giving itself several ways to avoid deciding it. At issue is the question of whether the process of drawing new election district boundaries is unconstitutional if one political party specifically… Read More

The Trump Administration late Thursday gave itself permission to deport more than 4 million undocumented immigrants, the parents of children who are U.S. citizens or have a legal right to permanently stay in the country. The parents previously had been protected by the Obama Administration. The action nullified a major part of President Obama’s deferred… Read More

In a nine-minute, tightly choreographed ritual, Neil M. Gorsuch took the oath of office again as a Supreme Court Justice, with President Trump and the First Lady watching silently in a front row in the VIP section of the court’s ornate chamber.  At the end of the oath, he recited the words, “So help me… Read More

President Trump moved on Wednesday to keep his restrictions on immigration in operation, if the Supreme Court now allows government officials to start enforcing those limits. In a new presidential order, issued to clear up an ambiguity that had surfaced in court cases, the President extended the planned expiration dates for the restrictions. As a result,… Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday afternoon ordered a new round of legal briefs in the controversy over President Trump’s executive order seeking to impose new immigration restrictions, giving itself the option of considering on June 22 what to do with the two cases before it.  If the court were to grant review after that private… Read More

UPDATED 5:27 p,m,   Hawaii’s lawyers urged the Supreme Court not to allow so many additional briefs, but did not resist having all further briefs submitted for the Justices’ consideration on June 22.  The letter is here. Trump Administration lawyers asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to arrange a schedule to have the Justices consider… Read More

Declaring that government policy on immigration “is not a one-person show,” a federal appeals court on Monday upheld all of the key parts of a federal judge’s order barring enforcement of President Trump’s new limits on immigration.  It said the president had exceeded the authority that Congress had given him to limit entry of foreign… Read More

Civil rights groups were stalled on Friday in their effort to force disclosure of a memo that President Trump has said helped him to change the approach on immigration restrictions so that his action could survive legal challenges.   A federal judge in Detroit, citing the fact that the constitutional dispute over Trump’s executive order… Read More

Both sides in a new Supreme Court test case on partisan gerrymandering – drawing new election districts to favor one party – on Tuesday answered the Justices’ questions about whether the case should stay alive, disagreeing sharply on that. But they also may have raised a broad new question about what voters challenging such partisan-driven… Read More