Legal News
Reports on lawmaking, constitutional issues, and court cases. The Daily Signal combines news reporting with conservative commentary and legal analysis.
-
breaking
SCOTUS to Hear Case on Trump Asylum Policy
The Supreme Court will consider President Donald Trump’s restrictions on asylum at the southern border. The Trump administration asked the high court to overturn an appeals court ruling that found his executive order restricting asylum applications was illegal. The restriction has remained in place during the litigation. The administration argues it can deny any asylum to… -
news
Alito Warns Congress Can ‘Turn Off the Lights’ at Supreme Court
Summary Justice Samuel Alito warned that Congress “can turn off the lights at the Supreme Court” through its control of the funding process. Alito spoke to Federalist Society members on Thursday, just more than a week after Democrats gained majorities in Congress and some members have issued subpoena threats to justices. “Congress can turn off… -
news
Conservative Justices Seem to Balk as Trump Admin Seeks Immigration Authority on Employers
Conservative justices seemed reluctant to grant the Trump administration sweeping authority to penalize employers importing immigrant workers. The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could have broader implications for the Trump administration’s immigration-enforcement agenda. While the administration argues that it can oversee all employer-related cases involving immigration, justices questioned the scope of… -
opinion
Democrats Aren’t Hiding Their Plans to Punish Political Enemies
Summary Democratic Party leaders, already getting drunk on power they don’t quite yet possess, have spent the days following the midterm blue wave gushing about how they will punish their enemies with lawfare. One party mover and shaker has been particularly forthcoming about what he and his colleagues intend to do once they take charge… -
news
Supreme Court Hands Trump a Big Win on Border Wall
The Trump administration has the green light to continue building a border wall in the Big Bend region of Texas after a Supreme Court ruling Monday. Plaintiffs seeking to block construction of the wall argued that it threatened the landscape of Big Bend National Park, which historically did not have high rates of illegal immigration,… -
news
Supreme Court Orders New Look at Male Inmate’s Women’s Jail Case
The Supreme Court agreed to toss a lower court ruling in favor of a male inmate who identifies as a woman and wants to be housed in a women’s unit. On Monday, the high court sent the case back for reconsideration by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in light of recent rulings upholding… -
news
Democrats Eye Musk, Miller Probes After Midterm Rout
WASHINGTON, Nov 8 (Reuters) – Tech megabillionaire Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s newly appointed White House chief of staff, Stephen Miller, will likely be targets of congressional probes when Democrats take control of Congress in January, a senior lawmaker said on Sunday. California Representative Robert Garcia, who is in line to chair the powerful House Oversight… -
opinion
A Slippery Slope to Criminalizing Politics
Summary Politics has high enough stakes without the losers being sent to prison—or losing their heads. Jailing opponents or condemning them to death is what dictatorships do, not democracies. But times are changing, rapidly, and democracy isn’t what it used to be, thanks to a vengeful spirit that’s taken hold from Brazil to South Korea,… -
news
‘Retribution and Lawfare’: Democrats Eye Supreme Court Subpoenas and Probes
Leading Democrats have promised to investigate and issue subpoenas to Supreme Court justices, and they will be in a position to do just that when they assume the majority in Congress in January. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., expected to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, previously said he and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., expected… -
news
CAIR Closes Up Shop in Florida After Federal Court Defeat
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has suspended operations in Florida after a federal court rejected its request to block the state’s designation of the organization as a domestic terrorist group. Earlier Thursday, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier posted on X: “This morning, a federal court upheld Florida’s Domestic Terrorist Organization law and rejected CAIR’s attempt… -
opinion
Winners and Losers From the 2026 Midterms
There’s no sugar-coating it: Republicans lost badly in the 2026 midterms, suffering stunning defeats in states once considered reliably red and seeing Democrats take control of both chambers of Congress. President Donald Trump encouraged Americans to vote like he was on the ballot, and many may have done so. Democratic socialists and a resurgent religious… -
opinion
Victor Davis Hanson: The Left Tried to Bury Trump. Instead, It Fueled His Greatest Comeback.
Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal. I haven’t talked much about my latest book that came out Sept. 8, roughly seven weeks… -
news
Legal Whiplash: Trump Scores Win in California Voter Roll Fight Over 20,000 Noncitizens
In an Election Day win for President Donald Trump’s administration, a judicial game of ping-pong in California has moved in his favor. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cleared the way for the Justice Department to continue its probe of California voter rolls, including a warning to election workers against counting illegal votes. The… -
news
Supreme Court Hears Contentious Arguments on Religious Freedom Fight Over Preschool Program
The Supreme Court could deliver another blow to Colorado in a religious liberty case over the state’s exclusion of a Catholic church from a “universal” preschool program. Justices heard oral arguments in St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy on Tuesday. “This is not a zero-sum game. Letting families use universal preschool funding at Catholic schools… -
news
These Election Eve Court Fights Could Reshape the Midterm Vote
Lawsuits on the eve of Election Day are giving courts a brief time window to make influential decisions before final votes are cast. The Supreme Court on Monday denied a last-minute emergency appeal by the Justice Department to set aside more than 20,000 ballots of suspected noncitizens in California. Meanwhile, lower court judges are still… -
news
Supreme Court Rejects DOJ Petition to Intervene in California’s 20,000 ‘Likely’ Noncitizen Ballot Dispute
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a request from the Trump administration’s Justice Department to temporarily block the counting of more than 20,000 mail ballots from suspected noncitizens in California. Last month, the department demanded that California temporarily set aside the ballots for the midterm elections until the citizenship of registered voters could be verified. … -
opinion
Pretending the Justice Department Was Never Partisan Under Democrats
The most obnoxious lie that erupts routinely in the “independent media” is that President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice is weaponized in a way that no Democrat has ever contemplated. It’s like they all observed everything that the Biden Justice Department did to put Trump and his allies in jail and considered it to be… -
opinion
What’s in a Name? Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Law School Name Change
Summary What’s a name worth? A lot, according to a case the U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to hear. In 1878, more than 145 years before this dispute, California’s first chief justice, Serranus Clinton Hastings—who made a small fortune from various real estate ventures—agreed to fund the establishment of a new law school in San… -
analysis
Trump’s Deportation Opponents Just Lost a Key Legal Weapon
Almost 90,000 immigrants have tried a legal maneuver to escape detention, but an appeals court ruling just significantly undermined that part of the Left’s anti-deportation strategy. ProPublica has tracked 89,170 cases in which immigrants filed writs of habeas corpus, challenging the lawfulness of their detention or imprisonment. The scale is extraordinary. Immigrants filed more habeas… -
news
Democrat-Run Cities Tried to Salvage a Biden Anti-Deportation Policy. SCOTUS Says No.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an application by three Democrat-run cities to restore a Biden-era rule that would postpone deportations of illegal aliens. The unsigned order, in the case of City of Baltimore v. Texas, had no noted dissents and left in place lower court rulings denying the cities’ request for interim relief. At…