Here’s my colleague Abené Clayton’s report on the supreme court’s decision to strike down a restrictive Hawaii gun law that bans people from carrying guns in certain public spaces and on private property without the permission of the property’s owner.
Supreme court clears way for Trump administration to revive restrictive immigration policy
The supreme court has cleared the way for the Trump administration to potentially revive an immigration policy once used to turn back migrants seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border.
The justices overturned a lower court order blocking the practice that limited the number of people who could apply for asylum each day under the Obama administration and during Donald Trump’s first term.
Advocates said the tactic created a humanitarian crisis as thousands of people settled in unsafe makeshift shelters to await their turn. The Trump administration said it was necessary to deal with an increase of asylum seekers at the border.
The policy isn’t in place now, though authorities have imposed other restrictions on asylum seekers.
The administration argues that metering is a critical tool that’s been used by presidents of both parties and should stay available. Federal attorneys say people turned away at the border could come back later, though lines were thousands of people long when the policy was in place before.
Under federal law, migrants who arrive in the US must be able to apply for asylum and be screened for fear of persecution in their home countries.
The justice department argued that people stopped by authorities haven’t arrived, so immigration agents don’t have to let them apply.
But attorneys for people seeking asylum say the law has long meant anyone arriving at a port of entry should be screened, and blocking arrivals disregards the nation’s ideals.
Metering was first used during the Obama administration when large numbers of Haitians appeared at the main crossing to San Diego from Tijuana, Mexico. It was expanded to all border crossings from Mexico during Trump’s first term in the White House.
It ended in 2020 when the government introduced greater restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic, and Joe Biden formally rescinded it in 2021.
The same year, a California-based federal judge found that metering violated the asylum-seekers rights and the law requiring screening. A divided appeals court panel affirmed the ruling but nearly half of judges on the full San Francisco-based court voted to rehear it, a strong signal that might have caught the attention of the supreme court.
Supreme court strikes down Hawaii's gun restrictions in major second amendment ruling
The US supreme court has struck down a Hawaii law requiring people to get permission to carry guns into stores and hotels, in its latest opinion backing second amendment rights.
The court’s 6-3 decision means that people can carry guns onto privately owned property like shopping malls and gas stations, unless the owners specifically say guns are banned at their establishments.
It comes after the court found last week that marijuana users can’t be completely barred from owning firearms.
Today’s ruling is a win for the Trump administration, which argued that the law violates the second amendment. Hawaii argued that the 2023 measure ensured private owners could decide whether they wanted firearms on their property.
The state passed the law as thousands more people got legal permission to carry guns in the wake of a 2022 supreme court ruling that opened the door for almost all law-abiding Americans to carry concealed and loaded handguns in public.
About four other states have enacted similar laws, though presumptive restrictions for guns on private property open to the public have also been blocked elsewhere.
Hawaii also restricts guns in places like parks, beaches and restaurants that serve alcohol, but those rules weren’t before the court. They are being challenged in lower courts, however.
The suit before the supreme court was filed by a gun rights group and three people from Maui. A judge originally blocked the measure, but an appeals court allowed it to be enforced. The Trump administration backed the supreme court appeal.
With the Associated Press.
Updated
US judge blocks Trump's mail-in voting executive order
A federal judge in Boston has blocked implementation of Donald Trump’s executive order directing his administration to compile a national voter file and to restrict the use of mail-in ballots, preventing it from taking force ahead of November’s midterm elections that will decide control of Congress.
US district judge Indira Talwani sided with several Democratic-led states who argued that the president is trying to unlawfully interfere with the states’ administration of federal elections.
Trump signed the order on 31 March after calling for years for tighter rules on voting by mail and pushing the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud.
Repeated studies and investigations have shown there is no widespread voter fraud, including fraud through mail-in voting. The president himself voted by mail the week before signing his executive order.
Under the US constitution, states are assigned the role of administering federal elections. His order directs the US Department of Homeland Security to compile and transmit to the states a list of confirmed US citizens eligible to vote in each state, derived from citizenship and naturalization records and other federal databases.
Trump’s order also requires the US Postal Service to only deliver ballots to voters on each state’s approved mail-in ballot list. USPS recently moved to implement Trump’s directive by issuing new proposed rules requiring states to provide the names and barcodes tied to their mail-in ballots.
The order also directs the US Department of Justice to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of state and local election officials who issue federal ballots to people deemed “not eligible” to vote.
Voting rights groups sued the administration along with 23 states and the District of Columbia, arguing Trump’s order is unconstitutional and that he lacks any legal authority to assert presidential power over election administration.
The states alleged that allowing Trump’s order to stand would force them to rush to overhaul their election systems before November, causing chaos and likely disenfranchising eligible voters.
Talwani, an Obama appointee, ruled after a different jurist, Trump-appointed US district judge Carl Nichols in Washington DC, declined to issue a preliminary injunction in a related lawsuit brought by Democrats challenging Trump’s order.
Nichols found that the Democrats’ request was premature as Trump’s order had yet to be implemented. They are appealing.
With Reuters.
Supreme court to release opinions with high-stakes cases still to be decided
The supreme court is due to release more opinions in the next few minutes, with the end of the term approaching and many major cases still to be decided, including Donald Trump’s highly controversial bid to end birthright citizenship, his efforts to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians in the US, and his firing of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook. We’ll bring you all the key rulings here.
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A reminder that the restrictive voting bill passed the House but stalled in the Senate, where Democrats have vowed to oppose it, leaving it short of the votes needed to overcome the filibuster.
Yesterday, Mike Johnson unveiled an idea to try to get around that. He proposed to advance a grant program tied to the bill in a GOP reconciliation package, so that the majority party could bypass the filibuster. The House speaker said he had told Donald Trump that this could be the only path forward for the legislation.
But GOP hardliners are not happy. They argue that Johnson’s plan amounts an incentive program and is therefore insufficient as it would enact only a watered-down version of the Save America Act, creating a fund to encourage states to tap into in order to adopt provisions of the bill rather than enacting the full legislation.
The aforementioned Anna Paulina Luna, the Florida Republican leading the rebellion, wrote on X after Johnson’s press conference:
The save America act cannot be placed in reconciliation and I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid. Neither should you.
And representative Chip Roy of Texas, who is the policy chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus and a major proponent of the bill, told The Hill he thinks “grant programs are what they are. They’re incentives.”
States who want to do it would take the incentive. States who don’t wouldn’t necessarily. Maybe it’s pressure. I’m not saying I’m opposed to putting something like that on if there is a moving vehicle that’s otherwise moving in order to get some elements of the election integrity done, but let’s not kid ourselves that it would be full Save. It wouldn’t be.
He added that “every effort should be made to attach the Save America Act to moving vehicles, for example, the housing bill.”
And as if Johnson’s pitch today wasn’t tricky enough, Trump was asked by reporters in the Oval Office yesterday if he would be open to a compromise of including provisions of the Save Act in a reconciliation bill. The president replied:
Not really, no, the Save Act should be … there’s no compromise, it’s voter ID, it’s proof of citizenship, and it’s also the mail-in ballots.
Updated
Per our last post, House speaker Mike Johnson is meeting with the president at 2pm ET to try to find a way through the gridlock after a rebellion from GOP hardliners effectively shut down the floor yesterday.
The group of Maga loyalists, led by representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, is insisting that no other legislation can pass until the Senate clears the so-called Save America Act. She posted on X after the upper chamber abruptly went into recess last night:
It is 10pm and Thune just got unanimous consent (meaning not one senator objected) for the Senate to adjourn 19 days (July 13th) meaning the Senate is going home after tonight’s votes.
I will not be voting to re-open the floor until the Senate gets back to Washington. The Senate is literally running and not ONE senator objected to going on vacation before 4th of July.
[Senate majority leader] John Thune is running and hiding because he doesn’t want to get voter ID across the finish line.
If Donald Trump can’t help Johnson break the impasse, the House will also go on recess for the week, sources have told Politico.
Updated
Trump to meet House speaker amid showdown on Capitol Hill
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
A dramatic day is in store in Washington DC as Donald Trump heads for a crucial meeting with Mike Johnson, the House speaker, in an attempt to break a legislative gridlock as huge political fireworks have detonated on Capitol Hill far ahead of anything resembling a Fourth of July celebration.
The US Senate abruptly went on recess for two weeks yesterday after a stormy lunch which the US president, who had not visited for a long time, attended. It descended into a shouting match over the US-Israel war on Iran and tests of loyalty. This followed Trump suddenly scrapping the signing of a pivotal bipartisan housing bill hours earlier. Trump’s demands that the Senate change the rules to pass his highly-controversial voter ID bill has led to a gulf between the White House and the upper chamber.
Johnson will attempt to get a reluctant House moving on Trump’s agenda today as a sop. A difficult task.
Here’s what else is happening:
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Maryland’s Democratic US Senator Chris Van Hollen is endorsing the progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s Senate primary, a split with Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, the Associated Press reports as an exclusive.
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The US supreme court is expected to issue opinions at 10am ET and most of the big cases have not yet been ruled upon. We await immigration and finance-related opinions in particular.
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Huge focus on the Hill where the House speaker, Mike Johnson, meets with Trump at 2pm, with both hoping the House will be persuaded to take a vote and end a rebellion from within the right wing of the Republican caucus over the Save Act to tighten up on who can vote in US elections.
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Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana got into a shouting match with Trump at the Senate lunch on Wednesday after Trump admonished four senators, including him, for backing a resolution to rein in the war in the Middle East. Cassidy reportedly responded: “You have not told the American people what’s going on” with the war, adding afterwards to reporters: “It was supposed to last four weeks. It’s lasted four months,” according to Politico.
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