Ninth Circuit Rulings Split on Trump Agenda: Wins on Guard, Refugees and Subpoenas, a Loss on Detention

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the federal court California and the Western states live under, has handed down a string of decisions that do not fit a single storyline. The Trump administration has won some. It has lost others. California's gun laws have taken repeated hits.

Immigration: a win for the administration, and a loss

One panel ruled that California cannot force federal immigration agents and other federal officers to display identification during enforcement operations.

Another ruling went the other way. The court held that the administration cannot keep people arrested inside the United States in mandatory detention without a chance to seek release on bond.

The court also affirmed that President Trump has the authority to suspend refugee resettlement to the U.S.

Separately, large-scale enforcement sweeps at known illegal-immigrant gathering spots in and around Los Angeles have been an uphill legal fight for the administration.

National Guard deployments

The Ninth Circuit ruled that Trump has the authority to deploy the National Guard to Portland, Oregon. That decision reversed a district judge's order.

The administration is still fighting over the Portland deployment even after that win.

In a separate dispute, the court temporarily blocked a lower-court order that would have returned control of 4,000 federalized California National Guard troops to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Gun laws

California's gun restrictions have fared poorly. A three-judge panel found the state's ammunition background check law unconstitutional. Another panel affirmed the Second Amendment Foundation's lower-court victory against California's one-gun-a-month law, and the court later issued its mandate overturning that restriction.

The Civil Rights Division of Trump's Justice Department also filed an amicus brief in the challenge to California's ammunition controls.

In a ruling against California's open carry ban, Newsom's press office accused "activist judges" of wanting gunslingers in the streets. That is the governor's office's characterization. The ruling itself turns on the constitutional question.

Ninth Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke has gone further inside the court. He is urging the Supreme Court to issue what Breitbart described as "benchslaps" over his own court's gun rulings.

Gender policy and a firing

The court sided with the Trump administration in its effort to subpoena doctors and clinics that provide gender-transition drugs and surgeries to minors.

It also temporarily blocked a California law that lets schools keep students' gender transitions from their parents. The block is temporary. The law's final fate is not settled.

In an employment case, the court ruled that Bonneville International Corp. lawfully fired longtime Sacramento Kings announcer Grant Napear over a 2020 "All Lives Matter" tweet. The panel upheld the lower court's dismissal of his wrongful-termination lawsuit. The result is a reminder that private employers have wide latitude to fire people over speech.

Land and mining

A federal court also blocked the transfer of federal forest land in Arizona to two international companies for the Resolution Copper project.

What the record shows

The pattern is not partisan in any simple way. The court backed the administration on Guard deployments, refugee suspension, officer identification, and medical subpoenas. It rejected the administration on mandatory detention without bond hearings, and a federal court also blocked the land transfer for Resolution Copper.

California, the lead defendant in many of these cases, lost on guns and on federal officer identification. The temporary block of its own school-secrecy law was another setback for the state, though the block is not final.

The Portland fight continues. The school-secrecy law is only temporarily blocked. Whether the Supreme Court takes up VanDyke's plea over the Ninth Circuit's gun precedents is the question that could reshape the court's Second Amendment docket.