Supreme Court's final cases loom over Trump's immigration, election hopes

The last Supreme Court decisions of the term include major tests of presidential power and election law that could have lasting implications on voting and governance.

The big picture: After blessing a wave of partisan gerrymandering, the justices have yet to weigh in on election disputes over campaign financing and mail-in ballots just months before voters head to the polls to elect a new Congress.

• The Supreme Court's final slate also includes significant decisions that will affect immigrant families, government regulators and transgender people.

Here are some of the biggest outstanding Supreme Court cases:

Election law

The Supreme Court has yet to resolve a dispute over a Mississippi law allowing election officials to count mail-in ballots received up to five days after Election Day.

• President Trump has repeatedly railed against mail-in ballots despite voting by mail himself.
• Striking down Mississippi's law could have implications for other states that have similar grace-periods.

Also outstanding is a decision on a Republican challenge that could chip away at limits on the amount of money political parties can spend in coordination with candidates.

• The Supreme Court upheld coordinated party expenditure limits in 2001.

Birthright citizenship

On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an order limiting citizenship to children born in the U.S. with at least one parent legally in the country.

• The order is a direct challenge to the Constitution's 14th amendment, which guarantees citizenship to "All persons born or naturalized in the United States."
• Upholding Trump's order would overturn more than a century of related legal precedent.
• Trump became the first sitting president to attend Supreme Court oral argument for the case, watching key justices cast doubt on his effort to restrict birthright citizenship.

Deportation and asylum

The Trump administration has moved to strip protections from hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals as part of its immigration crackdown.

• The high court heard arguments for eliminating temporary protected status for Haitian and Syrians in a decision that could have broader implications for immigrants from other nations.
• The administration argued that ending TPS designations isn't subject to judicial review, with conservative-leaning justices signaling agreement during argument.

The justices must also decide where the process of applying for asylum protections begins.

• By law, noncitizens "physically present" in or who arrive in the U.S. "may apply for asylum."
• The question before the court is whether a person stopped on the Mexican side of the southern border has arrived in the U.S. The administration argues they have not.

Trans athletes

The court has outstanding cases over transgender athlete bans in Idaho and West Virginia.

• The court's decision could enshrine that Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education programs, does not mean transgender athletes can compete in sports aligning with their gender identity.
• The court's conservative justices seemed poised to uphold the bans.

Trump's freedom to fire

The Supreme Court is considering Trump's ability to say "You're Fired!" in two separate cases: one over his attempted ouster of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook and another over his Federal Trade Commission firings.

• At oral argument, the court appeared skeptical of Trump's ability to boot Cook, whose attorneys argued siding with the president would signal that the Fed "no longer enjoys its traditional independence, risking chaos and disruption."
• The court seemed more open to Trump firing FTC members, which would be a blow to a 90-year-old precedent insulating independent agency commissioners from political firings.

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