The U.S. Supreme Court appeared hesitant during oral argument to embrace ATT and Verizon’s effort to upend the Federal Communications Commission’s in-house penalty process, a challenge that could have reshaped how federal agencies pursue civil enforcement.

The dispute stems from FCC allegations that the telecom companies failed to adequately protect customers’ location data, allowing sensitive information to be sold or accessed without sufficient safeguards.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has struck down a Trump-era executive order that sought to suspend access to asylum at the southern border, holding that the president cannot use a proclamation to override the asylum process Congress created in the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The ruling is significant because it reinforces a basic separation-of-powers principle in the immigration context: where a federal statute gives noncitizens the right to apply for asylum, the executive branch cannot eliminate that statutory pathway by unilateral order.

Litigation tied to the Trump administration remains one of the most consequential forces in federal courts, even when no single case captures the entire story. Across disputes involving executive authority, agency data access, immigration enforcement, and the boundaries between government power and the legal profession, courts are continuing to issue rulings that will shape public-law litigation for years.

One recent flashpoint involves challenges requiring agencies to justify contested access to government data, underscoring how Trump-era governance disputes have expanded beyond headline policy fights into core questions of administrative structure, privacy, and statutory authority.