On October 10, 2017, the Supreme Court entered an Order in Trump v. Int’l Refugee Assistance, et al., No. 16-1436, vacating the judgment of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and remanding the case with instructions for the lower court to dismiss as moot the challenge to President Trump's Executive Order No. 13,789, which involved the temporary suspension of entry of certain aliens abroad (known as the “travel ban”). The Court's order was not a decision on the merits, but reflected its determination that the case was no longer a “live case or controversy” because section 2(c) of the executive order “expired by its own terms” on September 24, 2017.
Justice Sotomayor dissented from the order vacating the Fourth Circuit’s judgment, indicating she “would dismiss the writ as improvidently granted,” which would have allowed the judgment below to stand.
The Supreme Court has so far not dismissed Trump v. Hawaii, No. 16-1540, the other travel ban case pending in the high court, although it took that case off of its oral argument calendar and requested additional briefing on mootness. Even if Trump v. Hawaii, is also dismissed as moot, some court observers predict the legal fight over the issues will continue.
Defender Services provides training materials to criminal defense attorneys regarding the immigration consequences of criminal convictions and common federal immigration offenses, as well as webinars addressing strategies for defending noncitizens, such as immigration basics and constitutional challenges to border searches of digital devices, among other materials available at fd.org.