WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Supreme Court ended its nine-month term, handing down several losses to President Donald Trump on key issues, including reciprocal tariff policy and halting efforts to end birthright citizenship.
But despite mixed rulings, including some notable victories on issues championed by the president, experts told Al Jazeera that the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, continues to trend toward granting broad executive powers.
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President Trump and his allies have long advocated for greater presidential power over the judicial and legislative branches of government.
Frank Bowman, professor emeritus of law at the University of Missouri, told Al Jazeera: “I would not go out of my way to psychoanalyze President Trump or anyone who works for him.”
“But if I were in their shoes…I think by and large they would think they’re doing well.”
loss
Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has put a check on some of President Trump’s most ambitious initiatives, especially those related to the economy.
courtroom upheld the independence of the Federal Reserve and ruled that President Trump must clear the issue. Congress-mandated procedural hurdles before firing Federal Reserve chief Lisa Cook. The committee also dealt a devastating blow to President Trump’s signature reciprocal tariffs, ruling that he abused the president’s emergency powers to override powers reserved to Congress.
The court also blocked the Trump administration from deploying the federal National Guard to states across the country late last year, rejecting the White House’s position that conditions would allow Trump to override legal restrictions on the deployment of U.S. troops to enforce domestic law.
The court rejected an effort by the president-backed Republican National Committee to block states from accepting mail-in ballots after polls closed during federal elections.
In immigration, the court also rejected President Trump’s effort to use executive authority to abolish birthright citizenship, with five of the nine justices saying the effort violated the 14th Amendment.
But four others fully or partially accepted the administration’s argument that the Constitution has been misunderstood for 150 years.
The Trump administration has already hailed their arguments as evidence of the strength of their efforts, gaining momentum as Republicans use the issue as a political wedge, Bowman said.
“(President Trump’s efforts to limit birthright citizenship) were always unexpected,” Bowman said. “The fact that we even came close to this is absolutely shocking.”
“This is a big issue on the right right now, and unless significant court reform occurs, similar types of birthright citizenship battles will continue for years, perhaps decades,” he said.
victory
Chris Edelson, a lecturer in the political science department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, agreed that the Supreme Court’s check continues to veer toward granting broad executive powers to the U.S. president.
The first major change for the court occurred with the 2024 decision Trump v. United States. He said the U.S. president has “absolute immunity” for official acts, effectively shielding him from criminal prosecution. He also mentioned actions taken during his tenure.
This term, in a case known as Trump v. Slaughter, the court ruled that the Trump administration could fire the heads of executive branch agencies, even if those agencies were deemed independent by law of Congress.
“When you combine the Slaughter case, which says the president has control of the executive branch, with the Trump v. United States case, which says the president can violate the law, the president is well on his way to becoming the kind of American monarch that Trump wants to be,” Edelson told Al Jazeera.
In addition to the Slaughter case, a series of other rulings on issues that Trump has defended have favored him.
The court held that the president has the sole authority to make decisions related to a special legal status called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nationals of countries facing crisis. The court also ruled that immigration enforcement officials under the president’s command have adopted the controversial practice of turning away asylum-seekers before they reach U.S. soil, potentially circumventing laws requiring them to be granted permission for their safety.
The court also upheld a challenge by Vice President J.D. Vance and other Republicans to campaign spending limits that allow wealthy donors to make unlimited financial contributions to political parties.
Overall, Edelson said the term has had mixed results for Trump, but the more fundamental ideological trends continue to favor him.
“The building is on fire. The fire is not out. But the question is, has the fire spread to every room in the house? And the Supreme Court has so far said no, not every room,” he said.
shadow docket
In its most recent term, the Supreme Court continued to rely heavily on so-called “shadow documents.”
Many cases are decided on a “merit basis,” in which the court hears oral arguments, receives written briefs, and ultimately considers the case by issuing a judgment with an opinion explaining the judge’s reasoning.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the order contained in a “shadow docket” is unsigned and contains no basis.
Although secret orders are not the final decision in a case, they can have significant effects, such as suspending a lower court’s decision until the case is ultimately heard by the Supreme Court.
According to a ProPublica analysis, the Supreme Court issued 63 decisions on shadow dockets during its 2024-2025 term, more than at any time in the past 20 years. During this period, decisions on the shadow docket outnumbered 56 decisions on the merits docket.
Legal experts say the orders generally benefited the Trump administration.
This includes the Supreme Court reversing a lower court order that prohibited the Trump administration from deporting individuals to third countries. In another example, the Supreme Court lifted a ban on federal agents stopping immigration inspections based on factors such as ethnicity or language.
While President Trump may regularly criticize Supreme Court decisions that don’t give him “100 percent of what he wants,” legal scholar Bowman argued, “Trump is actually getting a good deal of what he wants, both explicitly and implicitly.”
