June 25, 2026 11:50 AM UTC

SCOTUS Hands Down A Stack Of "Elections Matter" Decisions

• 0 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

As NBC News reports, a big and in general troubling day of decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court, starting with a 6-3 affirmation of President Donald Trump’s vow to deport thousands of Haitian refugees who he falsely accused of eating the pets of Springfield, Ohio:

The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the Trump administration to remove legal protections from thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants in the United States, meaning they could be subject to deportation…

The law in question “expressly restricts” courts from reviewing determinations made by the Department of Homeland Security on whether to terminate or extend TPS protections, [Justice Samuel Alito] wrote.

As for the claims of discrimination against Haitians, Alito said none of the statements cited by plaintiffs — including President Donald Trump baselessly accusing them of eating people’s pets — were “overtly racial” and “insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.”

Another 6-3 decision clears the way for the feds to turn asylum seekers away before they reach the border, The Hill reports:

The policy, called “metering,” began under former President Obama and ended several years ago.

It enables border officials to turn back migrants before they can physically cross the border from Mexico into the U.S., preventing them from making an asylum claim.

Not that any MAGA Republican will ever give former President Barack Obama credit for policies that earned him the derisive nickname “Deporter in Chief” among immigration activists, but it should be noted that this controversial policy was Obama’s before it was Trump’s. Which didn’t reduce the volume of Obama appointee Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s blistering dissent:

She said under the majority’s interpretation, the M.S. St. Louis, a boat that carried many Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi regime, would again be turned away.

“The Court’s illogical interpretation is driven almost entirely by a fixation on a single word: ‘in,’” Sotomayor wrote. “Words, however, must be read in context and with attention to how they fit into the statute as a whole.”

Sotomayor said the law requires border agents to process all migrants that arrive at a port of entry.

Turning to guns, where as Politico reports the 6-3 conservative SCOTUS majority struck down a Hawaii gun law as too restrictive of heat-packing rights:

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Hawaii law requiring gun owners to get permission before bringing their firearms into private shops and other businesses open to the public.

In a 6-3 ruling, the high court sided with gun-rights advocates who said Hawaii’s restrictions largely eviscerated the Second Amendment by declaring businesses such as grocery stores, restaurants and parking lots presumptively off limits to people carrying a weapon.

And finally, The Guardian reports on a 7-2 decision, with Colorado’s Justice Neil Gorsuch notably in the minority, dissenting against throwing out lawsuits tied to the pesticide Roundup:

The case, Monsanto v Durnell, specifically dealt with the question of whether a federal law that gives the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulatory authority over pesticides preempts state claims that a company failed to warn users of certain product risks when the EPA itself has not required such warnings.

“Fifra expressly preempts Durnell’s state-law failure-to-warn claim,” reads the opinion written by justice Brett Kavanaugh, pointing to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (Fifra).

NPR reports on Gorsuch’s and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent:

“In accepting Monsanto’s argument and holding that Durnell’s failure-to-warn claim is preempted, the Court misunderstands FIFRA’s requirements, misinterprets the scope of FIFRA’s preemption, and ultimately leaves Durnell without a remedy for the significant harms he has suffered,” she wrote.

And how this decision is likely to deepen divides between the administration and the so-called “Make America Healthy Again” movement:

Scores of protesters appeared in front of the Supreme Court in late April to support people who say they were harmed by the weed killer and other chemicals, in allegiance with the Make America Healthy Again movement.

President Trump has signed an executive order to boost domestic production of glyphosate, which has contributed to a rupture between the White House and some MAHA supporters.

Still forthcoming before the Court is done this session are highly anticipated rulings on presidential power to fire independent federal agency leaders, the hotly debated question of “birthright citizenship,” and the counting of ballots postmarked on Election Day but received afterwards. These are the decisions that are less likely to go Trump’s way on the merits.

Today, though, Trump won his SCOTUS cases. And if voters don’t like it, they’re only the ones with the power to…well, eventually solve it.