Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump's nightmare scenario is that the Supreme Court makes an unambiguous ruling that one of his major XOs is blatantly unconstitutional, forcing him to either drop a key policy goal or accept the consequences of openly defying the Court and risking impeachment, either now or in 2027 if the Democrats win the House. So far, he has lucked out.
Joe Biden created a program to extend legal protection to hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants from Latin America, including thousands that J.D. Vance imagined were eating cats and dogs in Ohio. Biden based the program on the concept of humanitarian parole for people from brutal dictatorships. The program was actually started by President Eisenhower, but Biden expanded its reach for people with an American sponsor. Trump hated the program and sued to have the courts overturn it. The lower courts refused to kill the program so Trump appealed.
On Friday, the Supreme Court gave Trump what he wanted, overturning the lower courts' rulings and rescinding the immigrants' protection. The decision was 7-2, with Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting. Interestingly enough, Justice Elena Kagan voted with the six Republican appointees. This doesn't mean Kagan is anti-immigrant, just that she believes no law gave Biden the authority to extend protection to the migrants, especially those coming from countries that are not brutal dictatorships.
Also at issue was whether the administration, specifically Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, has the authority to revoke the protected status of 530,000 people by signing one document or whether she has to sign 530,000 documents, each naming one migrant. This was the second time in May that the Court sided with Trump about revoking the protected status of a group of migrants.
In their scathing dissents, Sotomayor and Jackson wrote that the decision will create immense harm to the migrants and not allowing them to stay until the case is heard on its merits will not give the government any benefits. In contrast, Stephen Miller celebrated the decision.
The (unsigned) emergency decision is not final. The case will continue in the lower courts. However, meanwhile, the administration will try to deport as many of the 530,000 protected migrants as it can. That could take a while, since they have to be first rounded up and they may not cooperate. Also, if the administration uses planes that hold, say, 200 people, it will take 2,650 flights. That could take a while.
One Republican who doesn't like Trump's desire to kill the temporary protected status program is Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). She is incensed that he wants to deport Afghans who supported and helped the U.S. when it was fighting a war in Afghanistan. These people risked their lives helping the U.S. as translators and in other ways. If they are deported, the Taliban is virtually certain to torture them all to death. Murkowski believes this is no way to treat your friends. But Trump doesn't need Murkowski's vote, since the Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, so he is simply going to ignore her. (V)