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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. The Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: is back in session today here in oral arguments, the

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Speaker 1: Court issued some opinions and also announced it was taking

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Speaker 1: up four new cases. Joining me is Bloomberg New Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court reporter Greg's store, So Greg. The Court backed the

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Speaker 1: Trump administration in a deportation case back to the five

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Speaker 1: four split, with conservative justices in the majority and liberal

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Speaker 1: justices in the minority. What was that case about? This

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Speaker 1: case was about not whether somebody could be deported, but

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Speaker 1: whether somebody whose subject to deportation was to be detained

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Speaker 1: without the possibility of bond. We are talking about in

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Speaker 1: this case, people who are legal residents who committed a

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Speaker 1: crime and that might sub them to deportation. And the

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Speaker 1: question went to the interpretation of a of a federal

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Speaker 1: immigration law that talked about whether folks like these were

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Speaker 1: subject to what's known as mandatory detention, meaning there's no

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Speaker 1: possibility of being released while the deportation proceedings go forward.

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Speaker 1: This class action case was brought by, as you said,

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Speaker 1: two lawful permanent residents who were taken into custody years

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Speaker 1: after their release from prison. It's ironic that both were

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Speaker 1: actually allowed to stay in the country after bond hearings.

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Speaker 1: What are the implications of this decision for sanctuary cities.

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Speaker 1: It could be especially important for sanctuary cities. The corey

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Speaker 1: issue in the case was whether if somebody completes their

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Speaker 1: criminal sentence and then they're relieased and they are not

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Speaker 1: picked up by federal authorities right away, whether they were

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Speaker 1: still subject to mandatory detention as described into this federal

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Speaker 1: immigration law. And the issue in sanctuary cities is that

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Speaker 1: the officials don't always cooperate with federal officials and tell them, hey,

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Speaker 1: we're about to release somebody who might be deportable um

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Speaker 1: and so in cases like the ones you described, somebody

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Speaker 1: might be released maybe and be living in the community

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Speaker 1: for a number of years and then is later picked

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Speaker 1: up by federal immigration authorities. And those people were arguing

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Speaker 1: we should have a right to at least be let

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Speaker 1: go while our deportation case goes forward. But the Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court today said no you're not. Now, Justice Stephen Bryer

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Speaker 1: delivered the descent from the bench, which is rarely done.

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Speaker 1: What message was he trying to send and what was

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Speaker 1: his descent about? His descent was both about the wording

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Speaker 1: of the federal statute. He disagree with the interpretation of it,

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Speaker 1: and that he thought that the majority's interpretation was going

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Speaker 1: to cause a real constitutional problem and that therefore the

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Speaker 1: statute ought to be read in a way that didn't

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Speaker 1: subject people to mandatory detention. You know, he talked about

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Speaker 1: the possibility and in fact the reality that some people

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Speaker 1: would be living in the community, living productive lives and

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Speaker 1: then be picked up and not given a chance to

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Speaker 1: get out until their deportation cases finalized. And saying it

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Speaker 1: from the bench does that send a message? It does?

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's something justices do a few times

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Speaker 1: a year. Um, it's actually pretty early in the term

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Speaker 1: for a descent from the bench. We we most often

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Speaker 1: get those at the very end of the term. But yes,

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Speaker 1: you're exactly right, that is something justices used to emphasize

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Speaker 1: how strongly they feel about an issue. Greg It seems

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Speaker 1: that immigration cases involving immigration definitely divide the court. I

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Speaker 1: can't think of the last time there was a unanimous

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Speaker 1: decision having to do with immigration, but you know better

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Speaker 1: than I do. Uh, there was probably one that I'm

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Speaker 1: not thinking of off the top of my head. You know.

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Speaker 1: One thing that's interesting about this June we talked about

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Speaker 1: it as being the Trump administration, and it was the

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Speaker 1: Trump administration was defending the stricter interpretation of this law.

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Speaker 1: But the Trump administration inherited this case from the Obama administration.

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Speaker 1: This was more of a federal government arguing for our

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Speaker 1: broad power to detain people. And yet this decision at

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court ended up being along ideological lines. And

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Speaker 1: one can't help but wonder what would have happened if

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Speaker 1: the same issue came up to the Court with say

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Speaker 1: a Hillary Clinton arguing the case for the government. That

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Speaker 1: would be very interesting. We will never find out, though,

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Speaker 1: will Now the Court also decided on some new cases

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Speaker 1: they're going to take up. Illegal immigration is again a

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Speaker 1: subject of one of those cases. Yeah, this is a

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Speaker 1: case involving Kansas and what happens when somebody applies for

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Speaker 1: a job and uses a stolen Social Security number. That

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Speaker 1: is an area and we're We're, of course, primarily talking

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Speaker 1: about undocumented immigrants here, and that's an area that is

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Speaker 1: traditionally a federal area. The federal government traditionally handles and

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Speaker 1: has exclusive power over the employment of undocumented immigrants and

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Speaker 1: how to deal with that. But in this case, Kansas

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Speaker 1: decided that it wanted to prosecute three people for identity theft,

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Speaker 1: and the issue before the court in this case, which

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Speaker 1: they'll take up next term, is whether federal law precludes

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Speaker 1: that sort of prosecution from going forward. This seems like

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Speaker 1: it might be one of those divisive cases. Does this

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Speaker 1: indicate that the Court is becoming more willing to take

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Speaker 1: on controversial cases? I don't think I would say that

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Speaker 1: just because although this was a case that they didn't

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Speaker 1: absolutely have to take. You know, in general, there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of cases the Court is not taking, they

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Speaker 1: are sidestepping. One factor that weighed in here was that

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Speaker 1: the Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to take up

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Speaker 1: the case. And while the Court doesn't take up every

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Speaker 1: single case that the federal government urges them to take up,

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Speaker 1: usually when the government does urge that, the Court agrees

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Speaker 1: to hear it. So it wasn't an especially big surprise

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Speaker 1: that the Court took this case up, and we'll see

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Speaker 1: how they rule, of course is that's Bloomberg New Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court reporter Greg Store. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show

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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm June Grasso. This is Bloomberg