The Trump administration wants the U.S. Supreme Court to let it keep detaining people arrested in its immigration crackdown without giving them a chance to seek bond, even if they’ve lived in the United States for years. It’s one of several high-stakes cases the justices could add to their docket as the nine-month term opens next Monday.
Arguments begin with a dispute over whether oil companies, including ExxonMobil, can be held financially liable for helping drive climate change. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority and typically hears about 70 cases a term. It has already agreed to hear about two dozen. The justices are still sorting through a host of other petitions and were expected to announce some decisions this week.
Detention Without a Bond Hearing
Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took the position that non-U.S. citizens already living in the country—not only people arriving at the border—qualify as “applicants for admission” subject to mandatory detention. That marked a departure from a long-standing interpretation of immigration law. Federal law holds such applicants while their cases move through immigration courts and makes them ineligible for bond hearings.
The Board of Immigration Appeals, part of the Justice Department, adopted ICE’s reading. Immigration judges, who also work for the department, then began ordering mandatory detention.
The federal appeals courts have already considered the question thoroughly, said Kemal Hepsen, an immigration lawyer in Texas. The administration has lost 9 of 11 decisions. “On the statutory question, there’s nothing left to percolate, and the alternative is a country where whether you can get bond depends on which state ICE drives you to,” Hepsen said.
Prediction Markets and a Possible Patchwork
Another potential case concerns prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket, which have seen explosive growth. Appeals involving Kalshi, Crypto.com and Robinhood are before the court. The Trump administration has backed prediction markets in the litigation. Polymarket secured an investment last year from a venture capital firm backed by Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son.
Operators describe their “event contracts” as financial derivatives that only the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal agency, should regulate. A bipartisan coalition of states says sports-related offerings are gambling and fall under state sports-betting laws. Federal appeals courts disagree. If the justices decide these markets are gambling, the platforms could face a patchwork of bans, taxes, licensing regimes and criminal statutes.
Daniel Wallach, a Florida sports lawyer who has followed the litigation, said the stakes make Supreme Court intervention likely at some point. “The stakeholder interest in this controversy encompasses 50 states, hundreds of Native American tribes, hundreds of casinos, multi-billion-dollar financial exchanges, online sports betting companies and the federal government,” Wallach said.
Ten Commandments in Texas Classrooms
Several Texas families, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, have asked the court to strike down the state’s 2025 law requiring public elementary and high schools to display the biblical Ten Commandments in classrooms. They appealed after the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law doesn’t violate the First Amendment’s bar on government establishment of religion or its protections for free exercise.
“Our nation’s bedrock principle of separating church and state means that families and faith communities—not politicians—get to decide what role religion plays in children’s lives,” said Chloe Kempf, a lawyer at the ACLU of Texas.
Judge Kyle Duncan wrote for the 5th Circuit that the Texas law “does not tell churches or synagogues or mosques what to believe or how to worship or whom to employ as priests, rabbis or imams.” He added, “It punishes no one who rejects the Ten Commandments, no matter the reason.”
The Supreme Court struck down a similar Kentucky law in its 1980 decision, Stone v. Graham. But the court discarded that ruling’s legal framework in 2022, when it sided with a public high school football coach in Washington state who’d been suspended for refusing to stop leading Christian prayers with players on the field. The current court has taken an expansive view of religious freedom.
Republican-led Southern states have driven the classroom-display push. Louisiana passed a requirement in 2024, followed by Arkansas, Texas and Alabama. Critics see the laws as part of rising Christian nationalism. Louisiana’s law also faces legal challenges, and the state wants the justices to consider it alongside Texas’s. In February, the 5th Circuit let Louisiana’s measure take effect but said it needed more information about implementation before ruling on its constitutionality.
Why This Matters: Each possible case touches on who gets protection and who gets left to a patchwork. For detained immigrants, the question is whether a person who’s lived in the country for years can ask a judge for release on bond—or whether that depends on where ICE sends them. For Texas families, it’s whether public schools can post a specific religious text in every classroom, and whether the old Stone v. Graham precedent still holds after its framework disappeared. The prediction-market ruling could decide whether states or one federal agency polices fast-growing platforms, in a dispute where both the administration and an investor tied to a presidential family member have industry connections. The court’s decisions will shape daily life across the country. These choices carry weight beyond the justices’ chambers.