Morning Report

March 17, 2026 — Tuesday Morning Report (Boston Brian Day)

Mar 17, 2026

0302 AM SCOTUS TT·0302 March SCOTUS News Update daily AM YT

American Academy of Pediatrics v. RFK Jr. · 25-cv-11916

RFK Jr. pulled COVID, hepatitis B, and flu vaccines off the federal childhood schedule — and a federal judge stopped it within days, finding the government hadn't followed the process that exists for exactly this kind of change.

RFK Jr. (HHS Secretary) removed COVID-19, hepatitis B, and flu vaccines from the CDC's recommended childhood immunization schedule. The federal schedule matters: many states tie their school vaccination requirements directly to it, meaning removal from the federal list can mean children don't receive vaccines before starting school. The American Academy of Pediatrics and other plaintiffs sued, arguing the removal violated the APA. Judge Brian Murphy (D.Mass) issued a TRO, agreeing that the process looked likely to have been violated: agencies must go through formal public notice-and-comment before making significant policy changes, and this process appeared to have been skipped. Bryan clarified: Murphy wasn't ruling on whether the underlying vaccine decisions were medically right or wrong — that's not a judge's job. He was ruling on whether the process was followed. Preliminary read: it wasn't.

Constitutional question: Whether HHS's administrative authority to modify the CDC childhood immunization schedule can be exercised without public notice-and-comment under the APA — and what standard applies when the underlying policy decision has direct downstream effects on state-level compulsory education requirements.

D.V.D. v. Department of Homeland Security · 25-cv-10676

The government has been sending deportees to countries they have no connection to, skipping the process that requires asking where they want to go — and a federal judge called it unlawful, but keeps getting overruled on the way to a final answer.

Federal immigration law requires a specific sequence for deportation: first try the person's home country, then work through a series of options, then — near the bottom of the list — ask where the person wants to go. Only if all other options fail can the government send someone to a "third country" (a place they've never lived and may have no connection to). The Trump administration had been skipping the entire sequence, sending people to third countries with little or no notice, sometimes to places where they didn't speak the language and were immediately re-deported on arrival. Judge Murphy (D.Mass) twice ordered the government to stop — requiring real notice and an opportunity to object — and was stayed by the Supreme Court 6-3 last June with no explanation. Murphy kept working the case, issued a final ruling on the merits in February calling the policy unlawful. Government appealed to the First Circuit; a 3-judge panel issued a 2-1 stay. First Circuit expedited its briefing schedule. Bryan's Ouija board: expediting makes sense only if the court is leaning toward stopping the deportations, because delay means more deportations — and that only hurts one side.

Immigration and Nationality Act § 241 (order of removal

Constitutional question: Whether the due process clause requires the government to give a deportee meaningful notice and an opportunity to be heard before removing them to a country with which they have no connection — and whether SCOTUS's unexplained stay suggests it disagrees.

Trump v. Miot · 25-1084

The Supreme Court agreed to hear Trump's TPS appeal on an expedited schedule — but refused to let him deport 350,000 Haitians while it thought things over.

TPS (Temporary Protected Status) gives immigrants from designated countries a temporary stay from immigration proceedings. Trump had repeatedly tried to end TPS for multiple groups and lost in court each time. SCOTUS agreed to hear the administration's appeal on an expedited basis (oral argument set for late April), but — in a significant break from recent patterns — declined the administration's request to let TPS enforcement continue in the meantime. That meant approximately 350,000 Haitians (some granted TPS during Trump's first term) could not be deported while the case proceeded. Trump responded with a social media tirade against the Court. Bryan's Ouija board: denying the stay, while not a final ruling, suggests the Court may be at least skeptical of the administration's position. Bryan also noted TPS expires in summer 2026 anyway — making the administration's aggressive legal pursuit of this one somewhat puzzling.

Constitutional question: Whether the president has unreviewable authority to terminate TPS designations for entire national groups — and what the Court's reluctance to grant a stay signals about how at least some justices view that authority.

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