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A new term at the Supreme Court is just getting started, but one theme is already clear. Immigration will dominate the justices' time. NPR's Carrie Johnson reports.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost counts a half dozen immigration cases on the high court calendar, with more on the way.
AMANDA FROST: It's looking to be a blockbuster term for immigration law.
JOHNSON: She says the Trump administration has been pushing the envelope to stretch old laws to do drastic new things.
FROST: This administration is trying to rewrite immigration law without actually getting Congress to do so.
JOHNSON: Congress has failed to act on immigration for decades. So presidents from both parties have used executive action to advance their agenda. Chad Maisel, a former official in the Trump Justice Department, says immigration has been top of mind for the president since his first political campaign.
CHAD MAISEL: Part of the reason why we're seeing so much of this is that that was Trump's promise to the American people that he was going to take border enforcement seriously.
JOHNSON: A Justice Department spokesman says the administration's approach is, quote, "grounded in common sense measures that uphold both the law and the integrity of our borders." Chad Maisel says if history is a guide, the president and his policies are in line for some significant victories.
MAISEL: The president has an unprecedented track record of success at the Supreme Court and nowhere is that more true than when we're talking about the immigration docket and the immigration cases.
JOHNSON: But civil liberties and immigrant rights groups say the human cost of Trump's tough enforcement could be devastating. Trina Realmuto is executive director at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance. She's been fighting for migrants at risk of being deported to third countries where they have no prior ties.
TRINA REALMUTO: They have families, they have jobs, and under this policy, they are being abruptly and suddenly ripped from their communities and their loved ones and being sent to third countries.
JOHNSON: A lower court judge has ruled the migrants need a chance to argue they could face torture or persecution before they're deported. But the Supreme Court has repeatedly bigfooted that judge in Massachusetts and allowed those deportations to proceed for now. The administration says it won assurances from third countries that the migrants will not be abused. But Trina Realmuto says her class members have routinely described being detained abroad by armed guards in what she calls horrendous living conditions.
REALMUTO: What we know is that those so-called assurances aren't worth the piece of paper that they're written on.
JOHNSON: The justices are set to hear the case about third country removals in December. Legal experts say a separate immigration case will be among the most important of the term. That case revolves around the president's effort to use mandatory detention for migrants without giving them access to a bond hearing. Michael Tan of the American Civil Liberties Union explains.
MICHAEL TAN: The policy at issue in these cases is truly a radical break with the law. For decades, it's been universally understood, including by the first Trump administration, that immigrants who are living in the country and detained for a deportation proceeding generally have the right to seek release at a bond hearing before an immigration judge.
JOHNSON: Last July, Tan says, the Trump administration declared those immigrants would be locked up even if they were in the process of seeking legal status.
TAN: If allowed, this rule would literally subject millions of immigrants to mandatory detention, amounting to the largest mandatory detention regime in U.S. history.
JOHNSON: Meanwhile the solicitor general has asked the justices to accept another set of immigration cases about an effort to revoke visas for scholars at Georgetown and Columbia University. The administration says their presence in the U.S. compromises the nation's foreign policy. They say they were being targeted for their speech, which should be protected by the First Amendment. Former Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil put it this way recently.
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MAHMOUD KHALIL: Our question is simple. Can the government weaponize immigration laws to punish someone's speech, then tell federal court that they have no power to step in?
JOHNSON: The high court could weigh whether to hear the case sometime next year. Carrie Johnson, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF EMOTIONAL ORANGES SONG, "TALK ABOUT US") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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