Supreme Court declines to hear immigration and Redskins cases

The Supreme Court will not reconsider President Barack Obama’s plan to shield undocumented immigrants from deportation and denied the Washington Redskins’ bid to get its trademark case on this term’s docket.

With oral arguments postponed for a day because of the Rosh Hashana Jewish holiday, the first Monday in October that marks the beginning of the new Supreme Court term became a day of rejection. The court issued a thick stack of cases that had accumulated over the summer that the justices decided not to hear.

Among the other losers: the NCAA, which had asked the court to review an appeals court ruling about its policies involving the amateur status of college football and basketball players. The issue remains alive in other court proceedings.

The administration’s request was a longshot bid to salvage what had been the biggest legal defeat of Obama’s presidency. In June, a deadlocked court failed to revive his stalled plan to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation and give them the right to work legally in the United States.

The justices’ votes at the time were not announced, but the court’s liberals and conservatives were split at oral argument last spring. The tie meant that a lower court’s decision that Obama probably exceeded his powers in issuing the executive action kept the plan from being implemented.

The court’s action affected about 4 million illegal immigrants estimated to be covered by Obama’s plan, which would have deferred deportation for those who have been in the country since 2010, have not committed any serious crimes and have family ties to U.S. citizens or others lawfully in the country.

The Supreme Court rarely grants motions for rehearing. But the administration’s lawyers made the request in hopes that by now the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia would be filled.

Instead, Senate Republicans have blocked consideration of Obama’s nominee to the court, appeals court judge Merrick Garland. They say the next president should fill the election-year opening.

The fate of the program now awaits the election. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has said she will revive and expand the program; Republican nominee Donald Trump would end it for good.

The Washington football team’s request was something of a Hail Mary pass, as well. The club’s decades-old registration of its iconic nickname was canceled by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office, which said it violated the ban on disparaging trademarks.

But the team has appealed that and a lower court’s agreement to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. The Supreme Court does not usually grant cases before proceedings in the lower court are completed.

The issue, though, will be covered in the court’s current term. The justices last week said it would consider the similar case of an Asian American rock band called The Slants who were denied trademark registration.

A majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said the law – which calls for the rejection of trademarks that “may disparage . . . persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute”– violates the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee.