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The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted the solicitor general’s application to stay a district court’s order and judgment setting aside the Department of Homeland Security’s third-country removal guidance. The Court treated the government’s stay application as a petition for writ of certiorari, granted cert, and announced that it would hear oral argument in the case in December. (Order.) The order allows the administration to deport noncitizens to third countries until the Supreme Court issues its decision, which is expected next year. (NYT.) (WaPo.)
A unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday denied a motion by President Trump, his sons, the Trump Organization, and two of their attorneys to stay the district court’s sanctions order in the president’s case against the Internal Revenue Service. In July, the district court found the parties to the case were not adverse, sanctioned two of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, and barred both the plaintiffs and the government from citing their purported settlement agreement in any official proceeding. (Order.) (Politico.)
The en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral argument on Tuesday in a case on whether Chief Judge James Boasberg (D.D.C.) may proceed with a contempt investigation concerning his March 15, 2025 order to halt certain deportation flights to El Salvador. Several news outlets reported that the circuit appeared likely to allow the judge’s investigation to move forward. (Politico.) (WaPo.) (Wash. Examiner.)
Judge Vernon D. Oliver (D. Conn.) on Tuesday preliminarily enjoined the Bureau of Prisons’ termination of its collective bargaining agreement with the union representing about 30,000 of its employees after concluding that the union and one of its locals were likely to succeed on the merits of their argument that the termination violated the Administrative Procedure Act. (Order.)
Judge Melissa R. DuBose on Tuesday set aside the decision by the Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women and Office of Justice Programs to impose certain conditions on grant programs established by the Violence Against Women Act. The judge found the department’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, but “decline[d] to permanently enjoin [the department] from imposing the Conditions under any circumstances in the future.” (Order.) (NYT.)
A group of nonprofits on Tuesday filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the administration’s unilateral effort to cancel—or “pocket rescind”—certain housing program funding by submitting a proposed rescission to Congress so late in the fiscal year that the funds at issue expire before Congress can act. (Complaint.) In a letter on Thursday, the Government Accountability Office concluded that the administration could not withhold the funds proposed to be rescinded through their date of expiration, as this “subverts both the constitutional process for enacting federal law and Congress’s constitutional power of the purse.” (Letter.) (The Hill.) For background, see a previous Roundup.
Pending Interim Order Applications Involving the U.S. Government in the Supreme Court
Trump v. Kingdom: The government filed an application to the Supreme Court on September 28 seeking a stay of the district court’s August 26 order barring enforcement of the Bureau of Prisons’ 2026 policy ending hormone therapy, “sex-trait-modification surgery,” and social accommodations for inmates with gender dysphoria. The Chief Justice requested a response to the application by 4 p.m. on October 8.