High court to review 2 marquee immigration policies of Trump

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to review two major Trump administration immigration initiatives: a program that has forced at least 60,000 asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico while their requests are heard and the diversion of $2.5 billion in Pentagon money to build a barrier on the southwestern border.

Lower courts blocked both measures. But the Supreme Court, in earlier orders, allowed them to remain in effect while appeals moved forward.

The arguments in the two cases will not be heard until after the November election. Should President Donald Trump’s Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, win, his administration could take steps to make the cases moot.

In the case on asylum-seekers, an appeals court in February blocked the program, known as Remain in Mexico, saying it was at odds with both federal law and international treaties and was causing “extreme and irreversible harm.”

The program applies to people who leave a third country and travel through Mexico to reach the U.S. border. Since the policy was put in place at the beginning of last year, tens of thousands of people have waited for immigration hearings in unsanitary tent encampments exposed to the elements. There have been widespread reports of sexual assault, kidnapping and torture.

The coronavirus pandemic has complicated matters. In its brief seeking Supreme Court review, filed in April, the administration acknowledged that “the public health emergency caused by the COVID-19 virus” prompted it to take additional measures making it even harder to seek asylum.

“The government’s response to the emergency is fluid,” the brief said, “and measures attributable to the emergency are not at issue in this case.”

In the border wall case, a divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in San Francisco, ruled against the administration in June, saying Congress had not authorized the spending. But the Supreme Court, in a pair of interim orders decided by 5-4 votes, had allowed construction to continue until it either denies the administration’s petition seeking review or agrees to hear the administration’s appeal and rules on it.

One of those orders, though it was unsigned and only a paragraph long, indicated that the groups challenging the administration may not have a legal right to do so. That suggested that the court’s conservative majority was likely to side with the administration in the end.

Asylum-seekers and legal groups, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, responded in July that the dispute is for now academic, as the administration, citing the pandemic, has in effect closed the border to asylum-seekers. They urged the court to deny review in the case, Wolf v. Innovation Law Lab, No. 19-1212.