The Supreme Court's 2026-27 docket currently includes two immigration challenges and one dispute over access to information about Trump's Department of Government Efficiency. However, the court will consider multiple additional Trump administration petitions between Nov. 6 and mid-January that could substantially reshape the term.
In Mullin v. Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, the justices will consider at their Nov. 6 conference whether a Trump administration policy allowing rapid removal of undocumented immigrants without asylum hearings violates federal law. Two federal courts in Washington, D.C., ruled against the policy. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court that the D.C. Circuit's decision "threatens to dismantle" what Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin describes as an "indispensable" tool for border control.
The Trump administration also petitioned the court last month in cases involving Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national detained at Georgetown University, and Mahmoud Khalil, an Algerian national and lawful permanent resident, both targeted for deportation over alleged support for Hamas or antisemitic activities. The government contends that federal trial courts lack power to hear free speech retaliation claims in deportation cases. State of Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined their conduct compromised U.S. foreign policy. Responses from Suri and Khalil are due Nov. 20.
The court will also consider a petition from D.C., a Dominican Republic citizen who has lived most of his adult life in the United States and has three U.S. citizen daughters. He was detained immediately after completing a prison sentence and held for six-and-a-half months before a federal judge ruled he was entitled to a bond hearing with adequate procedural safeguards. Sauer told the justices that immediate review would allow consideration of questions the court previously agreed to decide in Genalo v. Black. D.C.'s response is due Dec. 8.
In Trump v. Thakur, the justices face a petition challenging a 2025 decision to end research grants from the Environmental Protection Agency, National Science Foundation, and National Endowment for the Humanities to University of California researchers. The 9th Circuit upheld a lower court's requirement to reinstate the grants, ruling the administration terminated funding because of recipients' "perceived expression of DEI, DEIA, or environmental justice viewpoints." The court rejected the government's claim it could cease programs deemed against the public interest, finding a distinction between ending programs and discriminating against disfavored viewpoints within them. Sauer argued that allowing the decision to stand "will establish precedent forcing taxpayers to waste countless dollars on private projects promoting ideologies that their public stewards reject."
The Office of the Solicitor General typically succeeds on about 60 percent of petitions it files with the Supreme Court.