Local climate claims and deportation safeguards face Supreme Court tests

Third-country removals can continue while safeguards are contested

In Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D., the court is reviewing the government’s policy of removing people to countries other than their own. The dispute concerns both the policy’s legality and the process people must receive before they are sent to a third country.

On Tuesday, the justices allowed the removals to continue while they consider the case. That interim order leaves classwide safeguards on hold; it is not a final ruling that the government’s guidance is lawful. For people facing removal, the difference matters now: the court has not yet settled what notice or opportunity to raise legal objections the government must provide before a transfer.

The justices have asked the parties to address whether courts have authority to hear aspects of the dispute, whether they may order relief for a class of affected people, and whether the removal guidance complies with federal law and other legal protections. Classwide relief would reach a group of people in the same legal position, rather than only those who brought the case.

The government is defending its guidance. The people challenging it seek legal safeguards before removal to a country other than their own. The court’s decision could determine both what those safeguards require and whether a court can enforce them for a group.

A detention case turns on access to a bond hearing

Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha addresses a different immigration question: whether federal law requires detention during removal proceedings for certain people who are in the United States without having been admitted. The court agreed Thursday to review that statutory question, not whether every immigrant can be held without a bond hearing.

A bond hearing gives a detained person a chance to ask for release while a case proceeds. It does not itself guarantee release or decide the person’s immigration case. For people covered by the statute at issue, the court’s interpretation could determine whether that chance is available at all.

Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha contests the government’s position that the law requires his detention without a bond hearing. His attorney, Paul Dwyer, told PBS News that denying him a chance for release on bond would punish him for being an immigrant. Dwyer said every court that had considered his case had rejected detention without possible bond release.

The two immigration cases therefore pose distinct questions. One concerns legal protections before removal to another country; the other concerns the possibility of release while removal proceedings are pending.

Cook County’s rifle restriction faces a constitutional test

In Viramontes v. Cook County, residents and gun-rights organizations challenge a county ban on the possession, sale and transfer of assault weapons. The question the justices accepted is whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect possession of AR-15-platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.

The challengers say the county restriction infringes constitutional rights. The case also bears on how much room local governments have to regulate those rifles. Its result could matter to gun owners subject to such restrictions and to communities whose local officials seek to limit access to the weapons.

The court has combined Viramontes with Grant v. Higgins for one hour of argument on Dec. 2. Agreeing to hear the cases gives the justices an opportunity to clarify the constitutional limits on rifle bans; it does not establish whether Cook County’s rule will survive. The question before them concerns a defined category of semiautomatic rifles, not every firearm regulation.

Colorado preschool funding pits two rules against each other

St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy concerns the conditions Colorado attaches to public money for preschool providers. The state’s universal preschool program, established in 2022, includes public and private providers. It requires participating providers to accept families without discrimination on listed grounds, including religion, sexual orientation and gender identity.

The parish argues that applying those conditions to its preschool burdens its religious freedom because its enrollment rules concerning children of same-sex couples conflict with the state’s requirements. Colorado’s funding conditions, in turn, govern which providers may participate in the publicly funded program. The dispute affects religious schools seeking access to that money and families who rely on the program’s nondiscrimination rules.

The justices agreed to consider two questions about religious exercise, public benefits and exceptions to Colorado’s nondiscrimination rule. They did not agree to take up a separate request to overrule Employment Division v. Smith, a broader religious-freedom precedent. The narrower review still leaves a consequential question: whether the state’s conditions and exceptions may be applied to the Catholic preschools at issue.

Boulder’s climate claims meet a federal-law challenge

Boulder County and the City of Boulder sued Suncor Energy and Exxon Mobil in 2018 under state law. The local governments allege the companies contributed to climate change and caused harm to government, residents and property. They seek monetary compensation; their allegations are not findings that either company is liable.

The companies argue that federal law and the Constitution bar the claims. Their argument invokes the Clean Air Act and federal authority over matters crossing state lines. Lower courts have allowed the case to remain in state court, but the companies want the justices to prevent the state-law claims from going forward.

For the local governments, the legal question is whether they can pursue compensation through state courts for the harm they allege. For the companies, it is whether state-law suits may be used to address effects they argue belong under federal authority. A ruling on that boundary could affect similar climate lawsuits without deciding whether Suncor or Exxon Mobil caused Boulder’s alleged harm.

There is a threshold question, too: the Supreme Court has directed the parties to address whether it has jurisdiction, meaning the legal power to decide this appeal. The court is scheduled to hear Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County on Oct. 5, before any ruling on that question or on the fate of Boulder’s claims.