Supreme Court heads into final stretch with major rulings still pending

The Supreme Court entered its final stretch with a docket that could still reshape who gets citizenship, who runs federal agencies, and how elections and deportation fights are handled before the term ends.

By May 6, the justices had finished their last oral arguments and still had nearly three dozen cases to decide before recess. The 2025-26 term began on October 6, 2025, and is expected to run into late June 2026, leaving a dense run of opinions that will land after months of politically charged arguments and some already consequential rulings.

The biggest case on the horizon is the challenge to Donald J. Trump’s January 20, 2025 executive order ending birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented parents and some temporary visa holders. The Court heard more than two hours of argument on April 1, 2026, with Trump in the courtroom, in a case now tied to the question of whether the order complies on its face with the Constitution’s citizenship clause. Every federal court to consider the order had struck it down before the justices took it up.

That fight now sits in a different legal landscape because the Court already narrowed universal injunctions in Trump v. CASA on June 27, 2025. That ruling limited lower courts’ power to block federal policies nationwide, giving the Trump administration room to keep pressing its citizenship order through the lower courts even as the justices decide the bigger constitutional question. Legal observers say several justices appeared skeptical during the argument, a sign the Court may be leaning toward a narrow or sharply divided answer.

Other pending cases could reach far beyond immigration. The Court is expected to rule on disputes involving transgender athletes, the meaning of Election Day, deportation protections, and whether a president can fire certain federal officials without cause. Those cases carry immediate consequences for schools, state election rules, immigrants facing removal, and the independence of agencies that oversee markets and labor.

The term has already shown how much power remains in play. The Court has invalidated Louisiana’s congressional map and wiped out Trump’s worldwide emergency tariff scheme. Together with the unresolved cases on agency removals, including Trump v. Slaughter at the Federal Trade Commission and Trump v. Cook involving Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, the remaining docket points to a Court still willing to redraw the balance between the presidency, the courts and the institutions meant to stand between them.