Despite being subverted by lower courts, Trump scored big in latest SCOTUS term

After facing repeated defeats in the lower courts, the Trump administration scored big in the Supreme Court’s 2024-2025 term.

While the administration’s most significant victory was a decision in Trump v. CASA to rein in district court judges’ use of nationwide injunctions, it also secured favorable rulings on emergency docket applications and positions it staked out in amicus briefs supporting other parties.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that lower courts exceeded their authority by blocking President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship restrictions nationwide, which Trump said was “a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the RULE OF LAW.”

“I was elected on a historic mandate, but in recent months, we’ve seen a handful of radical left judges effectively try to overrule the rightful powers of the president to stop the American people from getting the policies that they voted for in record numbers,” he said in a statement. “It was a grave threat to democracy.”

Emergency Docket Wins

While the Biden administration filed 19 emergency appeals at the Supreme Court in four years, Trump filed 19 applications in the first 20 weeks of his second term alone, Georgetown University law professor Steve Vladeck noted in June.

Emergency docket rulings, often issued through unsigned orders without details on the justices’ reasoning, are not final decisions on the merits. However, they proved important in enabling Trump to continue executing policies as district court judges blocked many of his efforts.

The Supreme Court handed Trump major immigration wins, allowing the administration to resume third-country deportations, revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelan nationals and end Biden administration’s parole grants for more than 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

Migrant encounters at the border peaked under the Biden administration, reaching 3.2 million during the 2023 fiscal year and 2.9 million in 2024, per U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. Trump declared an “invasion” at the southern border in a proclamation on his first day in office.

In other cases, the Supreme Court allowed Trump to move forward for now with firing certain executive officials, dismissing thousands of federal workers and enforcing the transgender military ban.

The majority also allowed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to access Social Security records and froze a lower court decision requiring DOGE to comply with a FOIA request.

Setbacks in two high-profile cases did attract significant attention.

The Supreme Court paused deportations under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) in a midnight April decision over strong objections from Justice Samuel Alito. In the case of alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who is now in custody facing human smuggling charges, the Supreme Court directed the Trump administration to facilitate his release from El Salvador, where he had been deported.

11 HUGE SUPREME COURT VICTORIES pic.twitter.com/jOcaXfdYOR

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 30, 2025

On The Right Side

The position favored by the administration prevailed in several cases where it intervened.

The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to find that Wisconsin’s decision to deny Catholic Charities a religious tax exemption violates the First Amendment. The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the Catholic Charities Bureau, an arm of the Diocese of Superior in Wisconsin, was not eligible because it was “not “operated primarily for religious purposes.”

In a decision authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court sided unanimously with Catholic Charities.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court let South Carolina move forward with defunding Planned Parenthood, an effort the state initiated seven years ago when it disqualified abortion providers from its Medicaid program. The United States filed an amicus brief supporting South Carolina.

The Supreme Court’s ruling could open the door for other states to end Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood.

In United States v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on child sex change procedures. The government changed its position in February, indicating it no longer held the Biden administration’s position that Tennessee’s ban violates the Equal Protection Clause.

The Biden administration gave its full support to transgender activists in litigation, public statements and behind-the-scenes. Former Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine pressured the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) to remove sex-change surgery age minimums for minors to advance the administration’s policies.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas said the case should be a warning to courts against assuming “self-described experts” are always correct, noting medical professionals declared a consensus around medical treatments for gender dysphoria “despite mounting evidence to the contrary.”

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