The vote in Trump v. JGG was 5-4. Here, Chief Justice Roberts joined Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh. This case was largely a victory for President Trump, in that the case can be heard in the Fifth Circuit, rather than the D.C. Circuit. Still, the Court went beyond its ambit. The only requested relief was to vacate the lower court's ruling. But the Court held that the government must also afford the aliens a hearing before they can be removed. Here, there was a subtle merits ruling on the shadow docket.
Justice Sotomayor wrote a dissent which Justices Kagan and Jackson joined in full. Justice Barrett joined only Parts II and III-B. Last week I wrote that Justice Barrett's vote in the Department of Education case did not signal a sea change. I also wrote that Justices Sotomayor and Jackson were not looking to alienate Barrett by calling out any hypocrisy with the USAID case. JGG makes me more confident in my speculation.
In JGG, Justice Barrett did not write separately to explain which parts of the majority opinion she in fact disagreed with. As I'll explain, it isn't clear to me exactly what Justice Barrett thinks.
