Supreme Court's December calendar: Guns, immigration, parental rights

Gun Rights

On Dec. 2, justices on the high court will hear consolidated arguments in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins. Both cases involve bans on semiautomatic weapons out of Illinois and Connecticut, respectively. 

One case challenges an assault weapons ban out of Illinois from nearly 20 years ago that restricts the use of more than 100 types of firearms, including semi-automatic weapons with detachable magazines.  

Lawyers for Cook County, home to Chicago, argued that government has the responsibility to protect its citizens from the dangers of assault weapons. 

"Assault rifles are the weapon of choice for criminals and terrorists set on quickly massacring innocents, but are rarely put to lawful use," lawyers for Cook County wrote. 

The litigation brought a slew of gun rights advocates to the high court, including members of Congress. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Jim Justice, R-W.V., Mike Lee, R-Utah, Cynthia Lummis, R-Wy., and Jim Risch, R-Idaho, urged the high court to strike down the bans. 

The senators said state legislatures cannot be responsible for enacting laws that go against the Constitution, in this case the Second Amendment. Lawmakers criticized the state legislatures for arguing its restrictions were based on gun characteristics when the laws violate the constitution. 

"The right protected by the Second Amendment is 'entitled to no less protection than other constitutional rights,' and a State may not 'sidestep' the guarantee by recharacterization," the senators wrote. 

Asylum Termination

On Nov. 30, the high court will hear arguments in Wassily v. Blanche, a case challenging whether noncitizens who were granted asylum into the United States are eligible for adjustments to their lawful permanent resident status even if their asylum was terminated. 

The case focused on two men admitted into the United States on asylum who later committed crimes. Federal authorities began removal proceedings for the two men after stripping their asylum status. 

However, the men appealed and sought lawful permanent resident status, citing unsafe conditions in their home countries of Egypt and Guatemala. 

Lawyers for the two men said the asylum stripping provisions bar the men from adjusting their temporary status. 

“The Attorney General may terminate asylum for a host of reasons – several of which rest entirely outside an asylee’s control,” lawyers for the two immigrants wrote in a petition to the high court. “Many of these former asylees and derivative spouses and children may have established strong ties to the United States over a long period of time.”

The Trump administration urged the high court to declare that the Immigration and Nationality Act rightfully gives the attorney general authority to regulate asylum in the United States. Government lawyers said convictions of the two men warranted removal of asylum status.

“[The] statutory language authorizes adjustment of status only for an alien who currently has asylum status,” lawyers for the government wrote.

Parental Rights

Justices on the high court on Dec. 7 will hear a challenge to Washington state laws that allow minors to access mental health and transgender care without consent from a parent. 

The high court will hear Partners for Ethical Care v. Ferguson, which challenges three Washington laws regulating the rights of minors seeking mental health care and shelter services. 

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to take up a challenge to Washington's laws last summer. Several justices on the 9th Circuit dissented from the decision not to hear the case.

"Washington’s legal regime governing gender-confused children now empowers its state-run shelters to hide minors from parents and to encourage them to travel further down the path of gender ideology," Judges Eric Tung, Patrick Bumatay and Lawrence VanDyke wrote in a dissenting opinion. 

Lawyers for Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson argued that the state's laws do not impose an injury on the plaintiffs at issue. 

"They asserted standing by misstating what the laws do and offering a series of hypothetical events to claim that they could, possibly, be injured at some unspecified future time," the lawyers wrote. 

Election Integrity

On Dec. 8, the justices will hear RNC v. Mi Familia Vota, a case out of Arizona focused on the state's election integrity laws that require proof of citizenship for the state's voter registration form. 

The case will determine whether the National Voter Registration Act prohibits states from requiring proof of citizenship when registering people to vote. In 2022, Arizona implemented laws to require proof of citizenship when registering to vote and to remove noncitizens from the state's voting rolls. 

Advocates for Arizona's law cite its necessity in the federal elections process. Jason Snead, CEO of Honest Elections Project, applauded the high court's decision to take up the case. 

“Americans overwhelmingly agree: Noncitizens do not belong on the voter rolls and have no place in a voting booth," Snead said. "Arizona law takes critical steps to prevent noncitizens from voting and to remove them from the rolls if they are erroneously registered."

Michael Morley, a professor at Florida State University, submitted a brief in support of neither party to the case. He said the evidence did not support significant amount of noncitizen voting in the United States. 

"Based on the available empirical evidence, we can be confident non-citizens comprise no more than a small fraction of one percent of the approximately 227,004,364 reported voter registrations in the United States," Morley wrote.

The cases make up dozens on the U.S. Supreme Court's argument calendar for the upcoming term that will have consequential effects across the country.