Supreme Court

In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.  Through a variety of changes to then-existing law, the Act took steps to facilitate the deportation of non-citizens convicted of crimes.

Justice Scalia made news last week for some remarks he offered concerning “easy” constitutional disputes.  In particular, he suggested that challenges to the constitutionality of the death penalty, laws restricting abortions, and limits on the rights of gays and lesbians to engage in homosexual activity should be easy to reject because they fail the test of textualism/originalism, the mode of constitutional interpretation that he has said he prefers.  In the space below, I analyze this mode, and discuss whether its use in the way Justice Scalia favors is, in reality, so easy

In the 2011 Term, the Supreme Court decided three cases involving the removal from the United States of immigrants with criminal convictions. On October 10, 2011, the Court will hear oral arguments in another case falling into this category, Moncrieffe v. Holder.

California Governor Jerry Brown last week signed into law a measure that regulates demonstrations near funerals in order to protect the peace and privacy of grieving families and other mourners.  In the space below, we analyze this law and seemingly similar measures that have been adopted at the federal level and in other states to determine when protecting mourners is, or is not, compatible with the First Amendment.

When the October oral argument session at the Supreme Court begins, in a few weeks, most of the attention will be focused on Fisher v.

The Supreme Court Term that begins in October, like the one that wound down this past June, features some potentially momentous cases. Perhaps the biggest case on the Court’s 2012–13 docket so far is Fisher v. University of Texas, a case in which the Justices will take up once again the extent to which public higher educational institutions can make use of an individual’s race at the admissions stage. (I have written a number of other columns on Fisher, including one viewable here (Part One) and here (Part Two), that provide additional background.)

On one of the last days of the 2011 Term, the Supreme Court decided Arizona v. United States and determined the constitutionality of four provisions of the controversial Arizona immigration enforcement law known as S.B. 1070.  The case had received a great deal of attention from Court watchers – and not just those interested in immigration.  Indeed, it had a little something for just about everybody, from federalism to civil rights to election-year politics.

At its core, S.B. 1070 is a use of the state police power and state criminal law to enforce and punish federal immigration violators; at its core this is what a majority of the Supreme Court rejected.

Who is a parent? Does biology necessarily and in all circumstances make one a parent? Are biological parents and their children "at the core" of all federal benefits programs?

  So far, the Supreme Court has issued four immigration decisions this Term.  There will likely be five in total.  Court watchers eagerly await the Court to decide Arizona v.