The US Supreme Court faces June with a large number of cases to be decided, among which are important complaints about immigration or the border with Mexico, as well as other more curious ones, such as that of an Asian rock band.
The country’s highest judicial body, composed of nine judges with life sentences, traditionally leaves the most important decisions for the last weeks of June.
Some verdicts will have only the signature of the eight justices who were in the high court prior to the merger in April of Neil Gorsuch, a conservative judge appointed by President Donald Trump, in what has been one of his greatest political victories.
Other sentences, however, will also have the rubric of Gorsuch, which could tip the balance in favor of conservative positions on issues such as religious freedom or the death penalty.
These are the six most important cases on which the Supreme Court will decide this month:
1. THE SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE
Judges must decide whether the state of Missouri acted legally by excluding a Lutheran church from a program that would have allowed it to reform its school playground, a vitally important case that reviews the separation of church and state.
Missouri denied funding to the church because its constitution prevents it from giving subsidies to schools affiliated with religions and in response the church went to the Supreme Court because it claims that the state has violated the guarantees established by the Constitution to protect its right to freedom religious.
2. THE RULES BETWEEN THE US-MEXICO BORDER
The Supreme Court will decide on an important case that could determine the rules that govern the border between the US and Mexico and that focuses on the figure of the Mexican Sergio Adrián Hernández, who died in June 2010 from the shooting of a US border agent.
The young Mexican died in the zone that separates El Paso (Texas) from Ciudad Juárez (Mexico) and that the judges have defined as “no man’s land”, since there is no line that can delimit exactly where the jurisdiction of Mexico begins and where Ends the United States.
Judges must decide whether the Mexican’s parents have the right to sue the US border agent who fired.
3. THE DETENTION OF IMMIGRANTS
The Supreme Court must decide whether it is lawful to detain immigrants who are to be deported for an unlimited period of time, or whether they are entitled to a hearing to examine their detention and to release them on a provisional basis, as is the case with American citizens.
The face of the case is Alejando Rodríguez, a Hispanic who in 2007 filed a lawsuit to end the detention regime in which he had been for three years and finally got a hearing in which a judge canceled his deportation and allowed him Continue to reside in the United States.
4. THE RIGHT TO FACEBOOK AND TWITTER
Judges must determine whether portals such as Facebook and Twitter have become such important sources of information that even sex offenders should have access to social networks, something currently prohibited by North Carolina state law.
5. ROCK AND TORN EYES
Among the most curious cases on which the judges will have to decide is that of the rock band “The Slants”, composed by Asian musicians and based in Portland, in the state of Oregon.
The Supreme Court will have to determine whether the name of the band, which refers to the eyes of the Asians, is offensive or if it is protected by the right to freedom of expression.
6. TRANSMISSION OF US CITIZENSHIP FROM PARENTS TO CHILDREN
Judges must decide on the criteria for transmitting citizenship from parents to children born out of wedlock and somewhere outside the United States.
The case is named after Luis Ramón Morales-Santana, born in 1962 in the Dominican Republic of a man with US citizenship and a Dominican woman.
