SCOTUS Tie Means Immigration Case Won’t Go Forward

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In 2014, President Obama used his executive power to enact sweeping immigration reforms, making it easier for undocumented immigrants to stay in the country and work towards a path to citizenship. While those actions have not harmed the nation, they did raise the ire of a lot of people who dislike immigration, legal or otherwise.

Twenty-six states have attempted to sue the president in order to prevent his orders form being carried out. The Supreme Court came to a 4-4 tie on that case, which came up in June, and has decided not to rehear arguments.

SCOTUS is sitting at only eight of its normal nine members following Justice Scalia’s death in February and the refusal by Senate Republicans to hold a hearing to confirm President Obama’s intended replacement, Judge Merrick Garland.

Because of the absence of one justice, the Supreme Court has tied on several cases, which means that effectively, nothing happens. Whatever the previous court’s ruling was in such a case, it stays in effect until the nation’s highest court agrees to hear it again. With the shorthanded court, that has been happening more than ever before.

That the court decided not to rehear arguments in this case, which had previously tied, implies that nobody has changed their mind, and that another tie would be inevitable, and a waste of time.

This is precisely why SCOTUS has an odd number of justices, and why the refusal to consider a nomination by President Obama is bad for American jurisprudence. The case should have been decided back in June. Had Justice Scalia still been alive, it would have likely been found against President Obama.

As it stands, the issue of the states’ lawsuit will likely have to wait until the next president is in office, and the two candidates for that office have very different views on the issue of immigration.

It remains to be seen how the court will decide on these cases, and it will depend highly on the justice, or justices, appointed to the court during the next president’s term.