Prices for the use of the National Guard in states and extraterrestrial enemies to expel the Venezuelans – many policies of the Trump administration make their way to the Supreme Court.
Juana Summers, host:
The judges of the Supreme Court of the United States should not meet face to face until the end of this month, but already, there is a legal truck of appeal from the Trump administration that the court must almost certainly decide this term, and every day seems to bring another blockbuster. The legal affairs of NPR legal affairs, Nina Totenberg is here in the studio with more. Hi.
Nina Totenberg, Byline: Hi.
Summers: So Nina, it’s been nine months from the Trump administration, and it is an administration that has experienced a number of legal challenges. What could we expect from the short term?
Totenberg: You know, everything I tell you tonight will be replaced or added to tomorrow or the next day. And it is because the Supreme Court, after having danced most challenges of Trump’s decrees, will soon face a lot of cases that cannot be avoided. They cannot be – the CAN cannot be launched on the road. I say that dancing because the court, for the most part, so far, has blocked the decisions of the lower courts against Trump on a series of questions. But these blocks, or stay, as they are called, are only temporary when cases take place in the lower courts. But now, almost a year after the second Trump administration, the lower courts – the district and appeal courts – have issued full -fledged decisions in some of these cases – very major cases – and the court will have to face these lower court decisions, and not on the issue of temporary suspension.
Summers: GOT it. So tell us, Nina, what is the biggest case in front of the Supreme Court right now?
Totenberg: Well, it depends a bit on what floats your boat.
Summers: (laughs) OK.
Totenberg: (laughs) In terms of the structure of modern government and the economy, these are probably two problems – the prices and the Federal Reserve Board. First prices – This week, the United States Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit ruled by a vote of 7 to 4 according to which the president exceeded his authority imposing prices in the world without practically no restraint. The short circuit has aroused its decision to allow Trump to call on the Supreme Court, which means that we will almost certainly get a decision on Trump’s tariff power.
Summers: Ok, they were prices. What about the Federal Reserve Board?
Totenberg: Well, the court in recent months has almost officially reversed a precedent of almost 100 years which has prohibited from dismissing independent agency heads. But to a recent opinion, the court seemed to carve an exception for the members of the Federal Reserve Board. Trump, who has not made a secret of wanting to fire Jerome Powell, the head of the Fed, has now drawn another member of the board of directors, Lisa Cook. It was appointed by President Biden, and her case is now a kind of test. And that makes Trump’s allies in the congress and in the very nervous business world because the Fed, since its creation in 1913, has been considered an apolitical and independent force for stability in the American economy, and all of this will undoubtedly be in the coming months.
Summers: Last thing, Nina, I understand that the use by President Trump of the Act on Extraterrestrial enemies is another major case which is likely to go to the Court. Tell us about that one, if you can.
Totenberg: Yes, it is the law adopted in 1798 which allows the deportation of immigrants in time of foreign invasion. It is a law that has so far been used only three times, still in wartime – said that times in particular Americans of Japanese origin and put them in camps during the Second World War, an action that Congress and the Supreme Court have since repudiated.
The Supreme Court at the beginning of this year, rather than deciding whether the invocation by Trump of the Act respecting extraterrestrial enemies was legitimate, referred the case to the very conservative Circuit Court of Appeals to answer specific questions, among them, was Trump’s action? And last night, a group of 5th circuit revealed that the use by Trump of extraterrestrial enemies acts to expel undocumented individuals was illegal. Writing for the majority of the panel, judge Leslie Southwick, a republican appointed, noted that even mass illegal immigration is not an armed and organized invasion of the type envisaged by the Act respecting extraterrestrial enemies.
Summers: Right.
Totenberg: There is also the deployment of the National Guard and the Marines in California to manage protests against the application of immigration. A federal judge tried just a few days ago that the president did not have the power to do so …
Summers: Very good.
Totenberg: … at least not without the consent of the state governor, which he certainly did not have.
Summers: Very good. We have to leave it there. We are short of time. The Correspondent of Legal Affairs of NPR, Nina Totenberg, thank you.
Totenberg: Thank you.
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