Court strikes down Hawaii law requiring permission to carry guns in stores and hotels
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court struck down a Hawaii law requiring people to get permission to carry guns into stores and hotels on Thursday, in its latest opinion backing Second Amendment rights.
The high court’s 6-3 decision means people can carry guns onto privately owned property like shopping malls and gas stations, unless the owners specifically say guns are banned at their establishments. It comes shortly after the court found that marijuana users can’t be completely banned from owning firearms.
It’s a win for President Donald Trump’s Republican administration, which argued the law violates the Second Amendment. The measure was sometimes referred to as a “vampire rule” because it required people with guns get permission to enter, like vampire lore says bloodsuckers need an invitation to enter a home.
Hawaii argued that the 2023 measure ensured private owners could decide whether they wanted firearms on their property. The state passed the law as thousands more people got legal permission to carry guns in the wake of a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that found the Second Amendment gives most people the right to have guns in public.
About four other states have enacted similar laws, though presumptive restrictions for guns on private property open to the public have also been blocked elsewhere.
Hawaii also restricts guns in places like parks, beaches and restaurants that serve alcohol, but those rules weren’t before the court. They are being challenged in lower courts, however.
The suit before the Supreme Court was filed by a gun rights group and three people from Maui. A judge originally blocked the measure, but an appeals court allowed it to be enforced. Trump’s Republican administration backed the Supreme Court appeal.
It’s one of two gun cases on the docket this term. The other is over whether people who regularly use marijuana and other drugs can legally own guns.
They’re the latest in a series of gun cases that have come before the Supreme Court in the wake of its 2022 ruling that led to a flood of challenges to firearm restrictions around the country. The justices have since struck down a ban on bump stocks, gun accessories that enable rapid firing, but upheld a federal gun law intended to protect domestic violence victims as well as strict regulations on firearms known as ghost guns, which are nearly impossible to trace.
Supreme Court clears way for Trump administration to revive restrictive immigration policy
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court cleared the way Thursday for the Trump administration to potentially revive an immigration policy once used to turn back migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The justices, in a 6-3 decision, overturned a lower court order blocking the practice that limited the number of people who could apply for asylum each day under the Obama administration and during President Donald Trump’s first term.
Advocates said the tactic created a humanitarian crisis as thousands of people settled in unsafe makeshift shelters to await their turn. The Trump administration said it was necessary to deal with an increase of asylum seekers at the border.
The policy isn’t in place now, though authorities have imposed other restrictions on asylum seekers.
The administration argues that metering is a critical tool that’s been used by presidents of both parties and should stay available. Federal attorneys say people turned away at the border could come back later, though lines were thousands of people long when the policy was in place before.
The case is one of several immigration suits is considering this term, including Trump’s push to end restrict birthright citizenship and his administration’s effort to strip legal temporary protections for migrants fleeing instability and armed conflict.
Under federal law, migrants who arrive in the U.S. must be able to apply for asylum and be screened for fear of persecution in their home countries.
The Justice Department argued that people stopped by authorities haven’t arrived, so immigration agents don’t have to let them apply.
But attorneys for people seeking asylum say the law has long meant anyone arriving at a port of entry should be screened, and blocking arrivals disregards the nation’s ideals.
Metering was first used during President Barack Obama’s administration when large numbers of Haitians appeared at the main crossing to San Diego from Tijuana, Mexico. It was expanded to all border crossings from Mexico during Trump’s first term in the White House.
It ended in 2020 when the government introduced greater restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic, and President Joe Biden formally rescinded it in 2021.
The same year, a California-based federal judge found that metering violated the asylum seekers rights and the law requiring screening. A divided appeals court panel affirmed the ruling but nearly half of judges on the full San Francisco-based court voted to rehear it, a strong signal that might have caught the attention of the Supreme Court.
U.S. law allows people seeking refuge to apply for asylum once they are on American soil, regardless of whether they came legally. To qualify for asylum, they must show a fear of persecution in their homeland for specific reasons, like race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.
People who are eventually granted asylum can’t be deported. They can legally work, bring in immediate family, apply for legal residency and seek citizenship.
Supreme Court allows Trump administration to end legal protections for Haitians, Syrians
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation.
The 6-3 decision overturns lower court orders and allows the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.
The Trump administration argued that judges can’t second-guess immigration officials’ decisions about the protections, which were intended to be temporary.
Immigration attorneys said the countries remain unsafe to return, and the administration ended them in an unlawfully hasty process tinged by racial animus. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants were abducting and eating dogs and cats.
The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court after judges postponed the end of the program for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The high court sided with the administration before and allowed the end of the program for people from Venezuela.
Federal authorities deny that racial animus played a role. They also cited a Supreme Court decision from Trump’s first term that rejected bias claims based on his social media posts and upheld a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries.
DHS has ended the protections people from 13 countries since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, including some that had been in place for more than a decade.
The terminations were made even though countries like Haiti and Syria remain dangerous, immigration attorneys said. Four Haitian women who were deported from the United States in February were found beheaded and dumped in a river several months later, lawyers said in court documents.
The House passed legislation with a rare bipartisan vote in April that would extend protections for Haitians, though the bill has languished in the Senate.
The U.S. first granted protections to Haitians in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake, and extended them multiple times amid ongoing gang violence that has displaced more than a million people, according to court documents.
Syrians, meanwhile, were first granted protected status in 2012, during a civil war that lasted for more than a decade before the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government in late 2024.
TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife and other instability. It allows people already in the country to stay with work permits in increments of up to 18 months, but it doesn’t provide a path to citizenship.
