CFPB At SCOTUS Today | Abortion Access On Deck For Tomorrow

March 3, 2020

Robert Barnes with The Washington Post reports that justices appeared split yesterday over whether an asylum seeker who failed his initial screening has a constitutional right to judicial review. Barnes writes, “During the argument, conservative justices were concerned over what a government lawyer said would be a ‘flood’ of such requests, frustrating Congress’s intention of subjecting those found quickly after crossing the border to expedited removal if their claims were unwarranted. The court’s liberals seemed worried about giving such power to administration officials without some check on whether they are following the rules.”

Nina Totenberg with NPR also reports on yesterday’s Supreme Court case at the heart of which, she explains, is the right of habeas corpus which guarantees that people who are held by the government have the right to go to court asking to be released. The case involved a Sri Lankan farmer — Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam — who is part of an ethnic minority that has long been persecuted in Sri Lanka. After being abducted and beatnen, he traveled more seven months to reach the U.S. and ask for political asylum. Totenberg notes, “Thuraissigiam’s case illustrates the speed of the expedited deportation proceedings that have become routine. Following a quick hearing with no lawyer present, an immigration officer denied Thuraissigiam’s asylum claim — finding that he did not ‘credibl[y] fear’ for his life if he were returned to his home country and therefore did not merit asylum. After a 13-minute hearing, an immigration judge — an executive branch officer, distinct from a traditional judge — upheld that decision. And so, a month after his arrival, Thuraissigiam was ordered deported back to Sri Lanka.”

At the Supreme Court today is the battle over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its independence from the president. Katy O’Donnell with POLITICO reports on the case which centers on the constitutionality of how the CFPB is structured to be insulated from political influence. “In an unusual move that highlights the case’s political sensitivity, the Trump administration in September reversed its position and said it agreed that the bureau is unconstitutionally structured. That led the Supreme Court to tap former solicitor general and conservative legal star Paul Clement to defend the agency. Democrats in Congress have filed amicus briefs defending the bureau.”

“At the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, the Trump administration is seeking to make it easier for the president to call in the heads of the nation’s independent agencies and say those words he was famous for on TV: ‘You’re fired!’ In particular, the administration is asking the court to restrict or reverse a decision that dates back nearly a century and that has been repeatedly reaffirmed.” NPR’s Nina Totenberg reports on today’s case regarding the CFPB. She notes that while the case will determine the short-term fate of the watchdog group, its outcome also stands to have long-term impacts on “the fate of independent regulatory agencies that have long governed everything from monetary policy to public health and safety.”

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear one of the most anticipated cases of its term — a major abortion case that is the high court’s first since Trump’s nominees joined the bench. The case is basically the same as one heard by SCOTUS in 2016, when it struck down a Texas law requiring that abortion providers obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The justices will review a very similar law out of Louisiana — the Louisiana Unsafe Abortion Protection Act — which is based on the argument that abortion itself can be harmful to women and that restricting access to the procedure is therefore beneficial to women. Jess Bravin with The Wall Street Journal reports.

“It’s hard to overstate what a decision about this law — requiring difficult-to-obtain hospital admitting privileges for doctors who perform abortions in clinics — will reveal about this Supreme Court and its jurisprudence on what remains one of the nation’s most politically divisive topics. It will be the first time the two justices selected by President Trump, Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh, confront the merits of an abortion case. It marks a key moment for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who has never voted against an abortion restriction, in his new and pivotal role at the court’s center.” Robert Barnes with The Washington Post describes the stakes of tomorrow’s abortion case. He notes that in addition to everything described above, it’s a case that will also test the Supreme Court’s commitment to respecting its own past decisions.

The Supreme Court today ruled 5-4 against an unauthorized immigrant in Kansas, holding that a state could convict him of identity theft without interfering with federal immigration law. Ariane de Vogue and Devan Cole with CNN explain that the ruling is a win for the Trump administration as it will encourage states that want to play a more active role in the area of immigration enforcement to use identity laws and similar statutes to target undocumented workers.