Secretary, Homeland Security v. Doe

 Docket: Secretary, Homeland Security v. Doe

Search - Mullin v. Doe - Supreme Court of the United States 25A953

Secretary v. Doe - U.S. Application to stay order below

Pursuant to Rule 23 of the Rules of this Court and the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. 1651, the Solicitor General—on behalf of applicants Kristi Noem, et al.—respectfully files this application to stay the order postponing agency action issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. [And for the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.]

...both times, the Court’s orders reflected that the government established irreparable harm and that the balance of the equities weighed in its favor. See Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009)

Related proceedings:

United States District Court (S.D.N.Y.): Doe v. Noem, No. 25-cv-8686 (Nov. 19, 2025) (order granting motion to postpone agency action) United States Court of Appeals (2d Cir.): Doe v. Noem, No. 25-2995 (Feb. 17, 2026) (order denying motion for stay pending appeal)

In essence the U.S. asserts that unexplained orders by two other courts establishes the law of the case allowing the termination of Temporary Protected Status enjoyed by refugees from Syria. 

The Solicitor General argues that 

"given the lower courts’ persistent disregard for this Court’s stay orders, this Court should also grant certiorari before judgment. Otherwise, lower courts will continue to impermissibly bypass an unambiguous judicial-review bar and displace the Secretary’s judgment on matters committed to her unreviewable discretion by law; continue to twist APA review to substitute their own judgment for the Secretary’s; and continue to impede the termination of temporary protection that the Secretary has deemed contrary to the national interest, tying those decisions up in protracted litigation with no end in sight. "

The U.S. Supreme Court has in fact stayed the orders below and granted cert before judgment. 

Brief amicus for 150 former U.S. and State court judges

The judges, appearing as amicus curiae, argue:

I. Unexplained interim orders do not bind courts in different cases. ................... 6

II. The Government overstates the significance of the NTPSA stay orders. ........ 9

III. The decision to deny a stay was a reasonable application of this Court’s

precedents.......................................................................................................... 11

IV. The court of appeals should address the Government’s merits

arguments in the first instance.

 Syria is a country in humanitarian crisis. In recognition of a brutal civil war that began in 2011, the United States has repeatedly granted Syrian nationals a form of statutory and humanitarian protection called Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”), which protects certain individuals from removal to countries designated unsafe on account of dire country conditions like armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extraordinary circumstances. TPS provides eligible beneficiaries with the right to live and work legally in the United States during a period when it is unsafe for them to return to their countries of origin. Over 6,100 Syrian nationals currently have TPS and, as a result, find refuge in the United States; and over 800 Syrian nationals have pending applications hoping for that same protection. 2. Plaintiffs are seven Syrian nationals with TPS or pending applications for TPS, who have lived in the United States for years and have deep ties to this country and their communities. They bring this class action to challenge Defendants’ remarkable and unlawful decision to terminate Syria’s TPS designation, effective November 21, 2025. 

350,000 Haitians are protected by TPS.  In a powerful amicus brief authored principally by lawyers from the multi-national law firm Bryan Cave,  argue that the actions against Syrian refugees endangers similarly situated persons who fled Haiti.

The amici judges continue their argument:

 Defendants’ actions put Plaintiffs with existing TPS at imminent risk of losing the critical humanitarian protection that TPS provides and rob Plaintiffs with pending applications of the opportunity to have their applications adjudicated. Should TPS for Syria be terminated, all Plaintiffs will face impossible choices: to uproot their lives yet again in search of a pathway to safety in a third country; to remain in the United States without lawful immigration status, at risk of imminent immigration detention and removal; or to relocate—some for the first time—to Syria, a country plagued by violent conflict, including air strikes, civil unrest, humanitarian crisis, and volatile country conditions.

 

Noem v. Doe: The government filed an application on February 26 requesting the Supreme Court stay pending appeal of a preliminary injunction issued by a district court preliminarily enjoining Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem from terminating temporary protected status designation for Syria. The government asked the Court to construe the application as a petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment and grant the petition. On March 16, the Court consolidated the case with a challenge to the Department of Homeland Security’s termination of Temporary Protected Status designations for Haiti and granted certiorari before judgment of the consolidated cases while deferring action on the government’s request for a stay.

The current status is:

Mar 16 2026

Consideration of the application for stay (25A952) presented to Justice Sotomayor and by her referred to the Court is deferred. Consideration of the application for stay (25A999) presented to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is also deferred. The applications are also treated as petitions for a writ of certiorari before judgment (25-1083, 25-1084), and the petitions are GRANTED. The cases are consolidated, and a total of one hour is allotted for oral argument. The cases will be heard during the second week of the April 2026 argument session. Petitioners’ brief on the merits, and any amicus curiae briefs in support or in support of neither party, are to be filed on or before Monday March 30, 2026. Respondents’ briefs on the merits and any amicus curiae briefs in support, are to be filed on or before Monday, April 13, 2026. The reply brief, if any, is to be filed on or before Monday, April 20, 2026.

 

Murder of foreign officials - a crime 18 U.S.C. 1116

It is a federal offense to intentionally select for killing 

18 U.S. Code § 1116 - Murder or manslaughter of foreign officials, official guests, or internationally protected persons

(a)

Whoever kills or attempts to kill a foreign official, official guest, or internationally protected person shall be punished as provided under sections 1111, 1112, and 1113 of this title.

(b)For the purposes of this section:

(1)

“Family” includes (a) a spouse, parent, brother or sister, child, or person to whom the foreign official or internationally protected person stands in loco parentis, or (b) any other person living in his household and related to the foreign official or internationally protected person by blood or marriage.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1116

Springsteen: Streets of Minneapolis - Live from Minneapolis

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyPFxh_XXwY&list=RDhyPFxh_XXwY&start_radio=1

Scotusblog: Scotus redefined citizenship - over 100

 https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/03/when-the-supreme-court-let-a-president-get-away-with-redefining-birthright-citizenship/

TPM on new media Marshall and Ragazzo

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-state-of-media-ai-buzzfeed-cbs-and-more

Ed Martin, Acting U.S. Attorney faces ethics charges

Ed Martin, Acting U.S. Attorney  faces ethics charges - TPM 

It’s Not the Crime, It’s the Clowning

Then-acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin already had plenty of trouble on his hands, all of his own making, when D.C. Bar disciplinary counsel last year began looking into his extortionist threat against Georgetown University. But good ol’ Ed, with characteristic aplomb, managed to make things a whole lot worse for himself.

In a newly filed two-count disciplinary case against Martin in DC, half of the complaint is devoted to his unconstitutional pressure campaign against the Jesuit University and half to Martin’s ham-handed efforts to block the probe by threatening the bar’s disciplinary counsel and by going over his head to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals while the probe was still underway.

In short, Martin managed to get a second count lodged against himself in the course of unsuccessfully fighting off the first count. Well done, sir, well done.

Morning Memo covered last March the details of Martin’s anti-DEI-fueled threat to Georgetown Law School Dean William M. Treanor. (He subsequently upped the ante by threatening Georgetown’s president and board of directors, too, according to the bar complaint.) So let me zero in on Count II, which is where the real comedy is.

Martin went nuclear on the disciplinary counsel right off the bat, according to the complaint:

That letter earned Martin an admonishment from the chief judge, who told him in a follow-up letter that the judges couldn’t meet with him ex parte — that is, without disciplinary counsel present — and that he needed to go through the normal bar disciplinary process.

A week later, Martin cc’ed the chief judge on an email to the disciplinary counsel, which earned him another admonishment from the chief judge:

A month later, after allegedly failing to respond to communications from the disciplinary counsel, Martin sent yet another letter to the chief judge, now taking aim at the disciplinary counsel himself:

That earned Martin a third admonishment from the chief judge.

China: new environmental code

https://npcobserver.com/2026/03/11/china-npc-2026-eco-environmental-code-analysis/

Vladeck: the Court's impatience is a vice

https://open.substack.com/pub/stevevladeck/p/214-the-courts-selective-impatience?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=zv1g

Scahill: Netanyahu demands Hamas disarm, Hamas refuses

 https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/trump-netanyahu-demands-hamas-disarmament-gaza-board-peace-negotiations-mladenov

As President Donald Trump prepares to convene the first official meeting of his speciously named Board of Peace on Thursday, he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have re-escalated demands that Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions imminently disarm—with Netanyahu insisting that all small arms must be turned over before the Israeli military withdraws any of its forces.

“Very importantly, Hamas must uphold its commitment to Full and Immediate Demilitarization,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Sunday.

This demand is being presented as a condition for any reconstruction to begin in Gaza, with no guarantees for Palestinian security or sovereignty. A senior Israeli official also claimed Monday that Trump is considering imposing a two-month deadline for Palestinians to surrender their weapons. Both Trump and Netanyahu have threatened that a large-scale war against Gaza could resume if Hamas refuses to capitulate.

Meanwhile Hamas has not been part of any formal negotiations for several months. Amid media reports of new drafts and U.S. preparation for negotiations, Hamas leaders say there has been nothing formally presented to the movement and that no official meetings have been held with the group to discuss possible scenarios.

RIP Jerome Cohen - by Martin Flaherty

 Jerome Cohen, the late lawyer and NYU Law Professor was our leading

"China hand".  He was an advocate for democracy in China while maintaining the ability to be heard in China.

I am grateul for his inviting me to join him and Judges John Walker and Jed Rakoff in China fifteen years ago.

Here Fordham and Princeton Professor Martin Flaherty offers his own reflections and tribute:

On the Legacy of Jerry Cohen

 

Jerry Cohen, who died earlier this month, did Thomas More one better.  More may have been a “Man for All Seasons.”  Jerry, as befits the title of his recent and compelling memoir, Eastward, Westward, was a Man for All Regions – more specifically, a man who more than any other united the East and West.  As many have noted, he was founder, father, and doyenne of the study of Chinese law outside – and in many ways, inside -- China.  As many have noted has well, he was very much more.  Not least, he drew in, and supported, countless people who otherwise would not have been much involved in the rule of law and China.  I was very fortunate to be one of them, and for that reason, so too have over a generation of my students at Princeton.

 

       Jerry taught me profound lessons starting from the first time I became aware of him.  Yet my first impression could not have been worse.  I had just been involved in a human rights mission to Hong Kong just after its handover back to Chinese sovereignty.  Not long after, the mainland government essentially overruled Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal concerning the right to abode under the new Basic Law designed to entrench the policy of “One Country, Two Systems.” This “[re]-interpretation” stoked fears that Hong Kong’s autonomy would be dead on arrival (rather than dead in 2020 with the National Security Law).  Most human rights advocates and NGOs steadfastly supported the stand of the Hong Kong Judiciary.  Yet Jerry argued that the Court of Final Appeal would have been wiser to issue a less bold ruling, the better to consolidate its position.  At the time, I thought this Professor Cohen was one of those typica “China hands” who never missed the chance to err on the side of Beijing.  I could not have been more wrong.  One lesson I learned was that Professor Cohen was probably right and usually was.  Another was that there was no more steadfast champion of the rule of law and human rights in China than Jerry Cohen. 

 

Jerry taught these lessons in countless ways to multiple audiences.  To specialists, his scholarship could not be anything other than essential since he more or less invented the study of modern Chinese law in the United States.  Then there was his courageous championing of an array of Chinese lawyers, scholars, and activists, themselves courageous, who risked their careers and freedom in the cause of fulfilling the promise of a reconstructed Chinese legal system.

 

      But for me, no less contribution was sustaining those concerned for the rule of law in general as it applied to the world’s largest state.  General human rights advocates benefited from a lifelong crash course through NYU’s US-ALI programs, Jerry’s regular column in the South China Morning Post, and his unparalleled Winston Lord Roundtable sessions on China at the Council on Foreign Relations, an institution not known for prioritizing international human rights law (as witness its Henry Kissinger fellowships).  Not for Jerry was the exclusivity speaking only to a closed group of specialists and Mandarin speakers.  So long as one cared about promoting basic legal standards of equity and fairness, Jerry was instantly your mentor.

 

Among the innumerable mentees were my students.  For over 20 years I’ve taught an ungraduated policy task force at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs devoted to the rule of law in China.  For the first decade, the goal was promoting the idea in China; for the last ten years it has pivoted to defending the concepts from assaults by China.  Either way, the project would culminate at the State Department and White House.  But the real highlight of the course was our “dress rehearsal” at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York hosted by Jerry and China experts he assembled.  There my students got a master class on all aspects of the topic.  Among other things, they saw a man in his 80s, then 90s, going on 30.  They also experienced Jerry’s rigorous courtliness and generosity.  Most of all they appreciated how his disappointment with the regime’s turn away from law translated not into despair or cynicism.  Rather, they saw that frustration turn into a renewed commitment to promoting fundamental fairness through law everywhere, including what has arguably become the most consequential country on the planet.

 

Given the countless persons Jerry has influenced in every region, it is a commitment that will live on.  From all of us, Jerry, Xie Xie.

Martin S. Flaherty

Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor

School of Public and International Affairs

National Parks Association v. Interior

 

 https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/turning-a-blind-eye/?utm_source=Boston+Review+Email+Subscribers&utm_campaign=e22fbdb1ae-ourlatest_1_17_26_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2cb428c5ad-e22fbdb1ae-40751265&mc_cid=e22fbdb1ae&mc_eid=040334e099

COLD by Mary Oliver

I think of summer with its luminous fruit,

blossoms rounding to berries, leaves,

handfuls of grain.

Maybe what cold is, is the time

we measure the love we have always had, secretly,

for our own bones, the hard knife-edged love

for the warm river of the I, beyond all else; maybe

that is what it means the beauty

 of the blue shark cruising toward the tumbling seals.

In the season of snow,

in the immeasurable cold,

we grow cruel but honest; we keep

ourselves alive,

if we can, taking one after another

the necessary bodies of others, the many

crushed red flowers.

—Mary Oliver, “Cold”

The Crisis - Thomas Paine 1776

250 years ago!

 “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. ”

Thomas Paine The Crisis, December 23 1776

 

Josh Marshall - Corrupt, fascistic Supreme Court - Talking Points Memo

 Reality Distortion in the Age of Trump and the Corrupt Court

With a hearing on the constitutionality of birthright citizenship now on the calendar, I want to return to a basic point we’ve discussed several times over the last year. Given our experience living mostly in “normal” times, many of us are used to the idea that the law evolves over time. When judges create new case law, the law evolves and changes. And we accept that it has “changed” — in a certain meaning of the word — even when we may not agree with the change. But with so many other things that have changed slowly since 2016 and then rapidly from early 2025, these are outdated ideas, outdated understandings of how the world and the law works.

Birthright citizenship is a key example of this.

Birthright citizenship is clearly, explicitly and incontestably written into the U.S. Constitution. It’s the country’s fundamental law and more than 150 years of American history have been lived on that basis. There’s a reason why no one has doubted this over all those years even if many have opposed it.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/reality-distortion-in-the-age-of-trump-and-the-corrupt-court

Springsteen - Streets of Minneapolis

 Minneapolis I hear your voice....First Avenue, Minneapolis

David Lurie. Federalism Can Protect Us

https://open.substack.com/pub/aaronrupar/p/trump-minnesota-occupation?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=zv1g

Three Cardinals: Say NO to ICE

Cardinals Joseph Tobin- Newark, Cupich - Chicago, and McElroy - D.C. Say NO to ICE - National Catholic Reporter

A high-ranking Catholic leader is ratcheting up criticism of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown and urging people of faith to be more vocal in calling out injustice.

Responding to a sense of helplessness many people are feeling in the wake of violence at the hands of federal immigration officials, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, urged people of faith not to shy away from the news and to use their voices to say, "No."

In a reflection delivered Jan. 26 during an online interfaith prayer service hosted by Faith in Action, Tobin employed some of the strongest language yet by a U.S. cardinal to condemn the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, describing Immigration and Customs Enforcement "lawless" and urging Catholics to tell their lawmakers to vote against additional funding.

Recounting a story from Bread and Wine, a 1936 novel by Ignazio Silone, Tobin described a character lamenting the incursion of fascist forces who asks a priest, "Father, what can we do?" With "the machinery of death" set in motion, as Tobin put it, the priest tells the young woman that what worries dictators and authoritarian regimes is the person who scrawls on the piazza wall, "No." 

"I think if we are serious about putting our faith in action, we need to say 'no,' each one of us," Tobin said. What saying "no" looks like today, he continued, is by telling the truth about what is happening and honoring those whose lives are upended.

Over the weekend, immigration enforcement agents killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident and intensive care nurse who was filming at the protest. Federal authorities say that Pretti was armed and a threat to law enforcement, but video analysis by The New York Times and other media outlets dispute that account. According to reports, Pretti's gun had already been secured by officers before two agents shot him at least 10 times. 

"One way that we say 'no' is that we mourn, we do not celebrate death, and, what is probably worse, we do not pretend it doesn't happen. We say names. We pray for the dead," Tobin said. "We mourn for a world, a country, that allows 5-year-olds to be legally kidnapped and protesters to be slaughtered."

One of three U.S. cardinals who recently signed a statement condemning President Donald Trump's foreign policy aims and calling for the White House to focus on peace, Tobin noted that he was speaking within a few miles from two detention centers. 

"Everyday people from many faith communities go to Delaney Street here in Newark, and to the Elizabeth Detention Center, and they say 'no' by standing at the gates, by talking with the ICE personnel, by insisting on the rights of the detainees within," he said. "They bring them human comfort, they console the families of those who aren't always admitted to see their loved ones. How will you say 'no?' How?"

Citing the Gospel story of the Good Samaritan, and invoking the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Tobin asked how people will say "no" to what's happening today.

"How will you say 'no?' How will you say 'no' to violence?" he said. "How will you say 'no' this week when an appropriations bill is going to be considered in Congress? Will you contact your congressional representatives, the senators and representatives from your district? Will you ask them, for the love of God and the love of human beings, which can't be separated, to vote against renewing funding for such a lawless organization?"

 Full text of statement by Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, Washington Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, and Newark Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin:

Charting A Moral Vision of American Foreign Policy:

Josh Marshall - As Minneapolis Writhes under ICE, recall the Boston Massacre

 

Minnesotans march against ICE

Alex Pretti, RN

Renee Good

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/remembering-the-boston-massacre-as-minneapolis-writhes-under-occupation/sharetoken/f2e26c5b-82b6-4fe4-9705-26e5cdedbea4?utm_source=brevo&utm_campaign=Backchannel%20671&utm_medium=email

 

Josh Marshall - founder and EIC of Talking Points Memo - is a Brown University PhD in American History. He looks [link above]  at ICE in Minnesota and elsewhere  acting as occupying soldiers - not as ordinary civilian-governed police.

We see that in their masked  thuggishness. They are an occupying army, not border protection - as we see from the mass protest marches by Minnesotans in freezing northern weather.

Resistance to this form of martial rule is key now as we face a thuggish President on the offensive.

The deaths of Renee Good -  a mother of three - and of Alex Pretti - an ICU nurse treating VA patients - have shocked us all.  Particularly because the President, Secretary Noem and others have leapt to swift readily rebutted justifications of these killings.

We have never faced this sort of repressive wave.  Not even the National Guard actions in LA, Detroit and Newark in 1965 - 1968 had the lawless character of today's repressive forces.  LA, Detroit and Newark led to the National Commission on Civil Disorders - which acknowledged we were moving toward "two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal,"   It acknowledged the just causes of the protests and called for a national commitment to jobs, housing, education, and police reform to foster integration .

We are in particular jeopardy because the Supreme Court 6-3 in Trump v. U.S. has immunized Presidents for official acts, even for the January 6  events and for "spreading knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the collecting, counting, and certifying of the election results."  Elsewhere we would call that an attempted coup d'etat.  We should be grateful for Jack Smith's recent defense of the prosecution of Donald Trump for attempting to block the results of an election he lost.

We should heed the call of Newark Archbishop Joseph Tobin to say NO.

- GWC