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Supreme Court faces backlog of emergency cases

8 4
wednesday
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Forget 911. When the Trump administration has an emergency, it just calls nine — justices, that is.

At the Supreme Court, a staggering number of emergency appeals are pending, most brought by the administration and ranging from birthright citizenship to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to independent agency leader firings.

There are nine emergency applications now before the justices. And yet, as they pile up, the court is taking its time.

The administration’s request to fire Democratic appointees at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) has been fully briefed for three weeks, but the court has yet to act.

And after moving at lightning speed in the middle of the night to temporarily halt some deportation flights under the Alien Enemies Act, the court hasn’t resolved that application, either, despite it being fully briefed for more than two weeks.

The stasis is unusual — but so is the massive emergency docket activity.

A new layer of mystery was added Tuesday, when a later case jumped the line.

The justices allowed Trump to enforce his transgender troops ban, which was blocked nationwide by a lower court. The high court received the request after those others were already pending, and the briefing completed just last Friday.

Another curious element: The court has tended to issue explanations of its emergency rulings on Trump policies (see here, here, and here), but Tuesday’s order contained no rationale. Even the three liberal justices refrained from writing anything in dissent.

As questions remain regarding the lack of progress on the other cases, the court’s plate is about to get fuller.

In the next few days, the administration’s requests to provide DOGE access to critical Social Security systems and end deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans will be ready for the justices.

Emergency applications can feel like a black box, so let’s walk through the justices’ options. The justices have five main pathways:

  • Deny the application: In most cases, the court simply denies the application. This term, 60 of the 67 emergency appeals decided by the full court have been denied.
  • Grant the application: This is the opposite end of the spectrum, and it’s the most straightforward way for the applicant to win. The court can grant an injunction, stay or whatever else is requested and send the case back to the lower courts for further proceedings.
  • Schedule oral arguments: By default, the court resolves emergency appeals based on only written briefs. But the court can opt to take the bench to hear oral arguments before issuing a ruling. This option is historically very rare, but it is increasingly becoming more common. The court will do so on May 15 in Trump’s effort to partially enforce his birthright citizenship order.
  • Move to merits docket: The court can pluck the case out of the lower courts entirely by moving an emergency appeal to the merits docket. This option leapfrogs the normal appellate chain but allows the justices to swiftly provide a definitive, nationwide resolution on pressing legal issues. The Trump administration has requested the court do so in the appeal seeking to fire the NLRB and MSPB members.
  • Grant an administrative stay: When the court needs time to think through its decision, it can issue an administrative stay, which preserves the status quo until the application is resolved. This is what the court did to temporarily halt some Alien Enemies Act deportation flights. Ultimately, the court will still need to choose one of the other options.

    • Unlike opinions in normal cases, decisions on emergency applications can come at any time, even at 1 a.m. — so, buckle up.

    Why so many emergencies in the first place? It depends on who you ask.

    Trump’s detractors say it shows he is acting lawlessly. The president’s supporters blame the dozens of nationwide injunctions imposed by federal district judges.

    “The biggest emergency is the courts aren't allowing us to take really bad people out,” Trump said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this weekend. “Well, that's to me the emergency, because the border now is not the emergency.”

    Usually around this time of year, the biggest Supreme Court news we’re watching for is the trickle of opinions released by the justices as the term winds down.

    Decision season kicks off next week. But the deluge of emergency applications is sucking up valuable time that the justices would typically devote to the term’s merits cases.

    If Justice Neil Gorsuch wants to make it to Prague to teach his annual summer class, they better get a move on.

    Welcome to The Gavel, The Hill’s weekly courts newsletter from Ella Lee and Zach Schonfeld. Click above to email us tips, or reach out to us on X (@ByEllaLee, @ZachASchonfeld) or Signal (

    © The Hill