The district court issued an order: immigration officers cannot stop people in seven Southern California counties without reasonable suspicion. SCOTUS stayed that order — six justices agreed, five didn't say why. The one who did was Kavanaugh. His four factors for reasonable suspicion in Southern California: proximity to the border, people gathering in certain locations to find work, work that doesn't require paperwork, and speaking Spanish. Bryan: "These are his factors. Just to be clear." Also: Kavanaugh cites a 1975 case for the proposition that ethnicity alone can't be the basis. "But it can be a relevant factor when considered along with other salient factors."
Perdomo v. Noem (25-cv-05605) is a Southern California case challenging immigration enforcement stops without reasonable suspicion. The district court had issued a temporary order prohibiting immigration officers from stopping people in seven Southern California counties without reasonable suspicion. The government appealed and asked the Supreme Court for a stay pending the appeal. Six justices agreed to stay the lower court order; five said nothing about why. Justice Kavanaugh wrote one page explaining his reasoning. Kavanaugh articulated four "totality of circumstances" factors he believed justified reasonable suspicion in the Southern California context: (1) the area has a high number of unlawfully present immigrants due to proximity to the border; (2) those individuals tend to gather in certain locations to seek work; (3) they tend to work in jobs not requiring extra paperwork (e.g., day labor); (4) due to proximity to the Mexican border, those individuals tend to speak Spanish. Kavanaugh cited Brignoni-Ponce (1975), which held that ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion for an immigration stop. But Kavanaugh distinguished: ethnicity can be "a relevant factor when considered along with other salient factors." Bryan flagged the distinction clearly: these were Kavanaugh's factors, and the factual critique — that officers cannot reliably separate ethnicity from the other factors in practice — is valid. But characterizing claims that weren't in the opinion (e.g., that Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a terrible opinion, when he wrote none) as misrepresenting what the Court actually decided.
Reasonable suspicionimmigration stopstotality of circumstancesBrignoni-Ponce (1975) (ethnicity alone insufficient)SCOTUS stay (6 justices)Kavanaugh solo explanationseven Southern California counties
Constitutional question: The Fourth Amendment's reasonable suspicion standard for investigatory stops (Terry v. Ohio) applies to immigration enforcement just as it does to ordinary policing. The constitutional question in Perdomo is whether immigration officers operating in communities near the border can use location, occupation, and language as proxies for immigration status — and if so, whether those proxies are meaningfully distinguishable from racial profiling. Kavanaugh's framework essentially argues yes: combining these factors creates reasonable suspicion even without racial identification. The dissenters to the stay (including the district court) and civil liberties advocates argue that in communities where the factors Kavanaugh identifies (Spanish-speaking, day labor, proximity to Mexico) describe the community broadly, "reasonable suspicion" under this standard becomes indistinguishable from appearance-based enforcement. That's the constitutional tension the case will have to resolve.
Chief Justice Roberts issued a one-page order staying the lower court injunction that had protected FTC Commissioner Slaughter from being fired. The Washington Post headline: "CJ allowed the president to fire FTC commissioner for now." Bryan: "Not strictly true. It's definitely stretching the story a little for clickbait." The stay says nothing. It doesn't signal anything definitive. Roberts may have acted alone because he didn't want to decide on his own and put a quick stay in place while the rest of the court decides whether to weigh in. But: if they decide to weigh in, Humphrey's Executor might be on the table.
Trump v. Slaughter (25A264) is the Supreme Court case arising from Trump's attempt to fire Rebecca Slaughter, an FTC commissioner. The lower court had issued a temporary injunction blocking Slaughter's removal. The government appealed and asked Chief Justice Roberts for a stay of that injunction pending the appeal. Roberts issued a one-page order granting the stay — on his own, without explanation. Bryan corrected an error he had made the previous day: he had said that a lack of dissent would signal the stay was minor, but Roberts can issue such a stay unilaterally while the full Court decides whether to take the case. So the absence of dissent doesn't tell us much. The one-page order says nothing substantive. Bryan's read: Roberts may have issued the stay because he thought other justices might want to discuss the case — which would be significant, because the relevant precedent is Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935), which specifically holds that FTC commissioners cannot be removed by the president at will. If the Court wants to revisit Humphrey's Executor, this case is a vehicle. But reading into a justice's mind is never a winning game, and nothing in the one-page order indicates that.
FTC commissionerpresidential removal powerHumphrey's Executor v. US (1935)CJ solo stay pending certone-page order (no reasoning)distinction between CJ individual stay and full court stay
Constitutional question: Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935) held that the FTC's "quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial" functions justify insulating commissioners from at-will presidential removal. The Roberts Court has been chipping at for-cause protections (Seila Law eliminated for-cause protection for the CFPB director; Collins v. Yellen limited removal protection for FHFA). Whether Humphrey's Executor survives the current Court — and whether the FTC, with its multi-member structure and mixed functions, is distinguishable from CFPB and FHFA — is the constitutional question the Slaughter case could force. Bryan's caution about reading the stay as signaling Humphrey's Executor review is appropriate: the Court may simply have wanted to prevent disruption to the agency while resolving a straightforward procedural question. Or it may be looking for an opportunity. There's no way to tell from a one-page order.
A group of states sued the federal government for mass-laying off provisional employees — workers who hadn't been at the job long enough to have civil service protections. The states' argument: the layoffs made us unable to meet federal statutory requirements to support the workers. The Court of Appeals: we hear you. But that's a fight between the federal government and its own employees. The states don't have standing here. One justice dissented.
Maryland v. Department of Agriculture (25-cv-00748) is an appellate case in which a coalition of states challenged the Trump administration's mass layoffs of "provisional" federal employees — employees who hadn't worked at the federal government long enough (typically one to two years) to have vested civil service protections and thus lacked strong protection against termination. The states' theory: the mass layoffs left them unable to meet their own obligations under federal statutes that required them to provide support and services to the workers affected. In other words, the federal layoffs created downstream state compliance problems. The case reached the court of appeals, which dismissed it. The court's holding: states cannot intervene in the employment relationship between the federal government and its own employees. Even if the layoffs created downstream harm to the states, that harm runs through the employees, not directly to the states — and it's the employees, not the states, who have standing to challenge the layoffs. The employees can sue on their own. One justice dissented, leaving open the possibility of further appeal.
State standingfederal employee layoffsprovisional employees (no civil service protection)third-party standingstates' downstream obligationsCourt of Appeals dismissaldissent
Constitutional question: The case raises the structural question of how states can push back against federal employment decisions that affect state programs. Congress writes laws that require states to provide certain services; federal agencies implement those programs using federal workers; when those workers are mass-terminated without notice, state programs relying on those workers' outputs are disrupted. The constitutional standing doctrine prevents states from directly challenging employment decisions made in the federal government's internal operations — but those internal decisions have real external effects on state obligations. The dismissal on standing grounds means the courts are not reaching the question of whether the layoffs themselves violated civil service law or administrative requirements — those questions belong to the employees who may (or may not) choose to sue individually.
