Supreme Court pays dividends for Trump

▪ Trump’s victories at the Supreme Court

▪ Hard-liners pause House business

▪ Ship hit in Strait of Hormuz

▪ U.S. assisting Venezuela earthquake recovery

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President Trump is notching significant wins with the Supreme Court, demonstrating just how consequential it was that he was able to appoint three justices during his first term.

Those same justices are now delivering Trump major political victories on some of his biggest second-term priorities, particularly on the president’s signature issue of immigration.

The president hasn’t always seen eye-to-eye with the court, at times publicly criticizing his own appointees. In February, political observers even questioned whether the justices would attend Trump’s State of the Union address after he called Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch “an embarrassment to their families” over a ruling striking down his sweeping tariffs.

But Trump’s criticism has done little to change the broader trajectory of the nation’s highest court, which is what really matters to him. The decisions this week are just the latest sign that the conservative majority he helped build continues to play a key role in advancing his second-term agenda.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines that the government can legally turn away asylum seekers trying to reach a U.S. port of entry, provided they have not yet stepped onto U.S. soil. The decision marks a significant win for the Trump administration and clears the way for officials to try to bring back the now-rescinded immigration policy.

“In ordinary speech, no one would say that a person ‘arrives in’ a place — for example, a house, a city, or a country — before the person enters that place,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the six-member conservative majority.

The case touched on one of the country’s most politically fraught issues, a point made clear by liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s decision to read her blistering dissent from the bench, which justices typically only do when they feel particularly passionate about a case.

Sotomayor argued that under the majority’s interpretation, the MS St. Louis, a boat that carried many Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, would again be turned away, and she warned that people fleeing persecution and violence would be more vulnerable to “dangerous conditions”

“The consequences of today’s decision are predictable,” she read from her dissent. “More people will die. More people will attempt to cross the border illegally, and some will make it while others will not.”

Sotomayor’s remarks drew a rare vocal response from Alito.

When she criticized the majority opinion as “egregiously wrong,” Alito leaned forward in his chair, propped his chin in his hands and stared up at the ceiling, The Hill’s Sarah Davis reported from inside the court.

After she concluded, Alito softly cleared his throat before issuing a rare off-the-cuff response to a dissent. The conservative justice appeared testy as he said that there was much more that he “would have added” if he’d known that Sotomayor would read her dissent aloud in full.

A second 6-3 ruling Thursday cleared the way for the Trump administration to end temporary legal protections for Haitian and Syrian migrants, opening the door to the potential deportations of hundreds of thousands of people with temporary protected status (TPS).

The ruling drew swift condemnation from Democrats. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) called it “very cruel and lawless” and said she was “shell-shocked” when it came down.

Some vulnerable House Republicans also stopped short of fully embracing the decision.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) — who represents one of three GOP-held districts that former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024 — called on the Trump administration to create an “orderly process by which Haitian TPS holders can maintain their work authorization while their immigration cases are adjudicated over the next six months, if the revocation of TPS moves forward.”

Lawler said conditions in Haiti are “a humanitarian and political disaster,” even though he said he “never disputed” the president’s authority to end the policy.

The immigration rulings also serve as a reminder of the important role Senate elections play in shaping the Supreme Court.

Had Republicans not controlled the Senate at the start of Trump’s first term, it’s unclear whether the court would have its current conservative makeup.

Before Trump took office in 2017, Senate Republicans blocked former President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland. Months later, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) lowered the confirmation threshold for Supreme Court nominees from a 60-vote supermajority to a simple majority, clearing the way for Trump to install his three appointees.

For Trump, pushing through judicial nominees may ultimately prove to be the most enduring way to advance his agenda. That path likely looks even more appealing after he encountered significant resistance this week from Senate Republicans over his repeated demands to........

© The Hill