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The Supreme Court was very active on Monday. Not only did the court rule in favor of LGBT workers in a civil rights case, but they declined to hear several landmark cases. It was revealed on Monday that the court had refused to hear cases on sanctuary cities, gun rights or qualified immunity. However, by refusing to hear them, the court allows lower court rulings to stand.
On Monday, the Supreme Court announced it wouldn’t be taking up cases related to sanctuary cities. The term refers to a city that refuses to cooperate with federal immigration laws at the local level.
Many Democrat-controlled cities have refused to work with the Trump administration or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As is typical, the court didn’t announce its reasoning for refusing to hear the cases.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, notably outspoken conservatives, both said they would have wanted to hear the cases. By leaving the cases unheard, the Supreme Court allows lower court rulings to stand. In effect, this will block local police from contacting the federal authorities when they release immigrants after local crimes.
This also comes as a blow to the Trump administration. The current administration has doggedly pursued a draconian application of immigration enforcement. Meanwhile, by not hearing the cases, the Supreme Court has effectively upheld a California circuit court’s decision.
Also on Monday, the Supreme Court announced it would not be hearing cases regarding the Second Amendment. The court dismissed some ten cases regarding gun rights, allowing lower rulings to stand.
This also comes as a major blow to gun rights activists. They hoped the new conservative majority on the court would be a boon to their cause.
The court has not issued many opinions on the Second Amendment in recent years.
A notable 2010 case established keeping a gun in the home as a constitutional right. But gun rights activists have been begging the court to take up cases relating to gun rights for the intervening decade. Many of them take gun ownership as a matter of course, arguing guns should be as easy to buy as back pain relief medicine.
In a dissent against the decision to not take up the cases, Justice Thomas wrote that the court was making a mistake. “[I]n several jurisdictions throughout the country, law-abiding citizens have been barred from exercising the fundamental right to bear arms because they cannot show that they have a ‘justifiable need’ or ‘good reason’ for doing so.”
