Supreme Court to Hear Immigration Detention, Climate Lawsuits in October

One case tests whether federal law bars some state climate lawsuits; the other, whether prolonged immigration detention requires a bond hearing.

The Supreme Court in Washington on July 13, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The U.S. Supreme Court on Aug. 4 scheduled two high-profile cases for oral argument in October, one being climate-related and the other concerning immigration detention policies.

The court said in a new scheduling order that it will hear Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. Commissioners of Boulder County on Oct. 5.

In the case, oil companies are asking the justices to halt climate-related city and state lawsuits against them.

Although the case concerns a lawsuit filed by Boulder, Colorado, many states, such as California and Hawaii, as well as local governments, such as Chicago and Baltimore, have filed suits against energy companies, arguing that their products have climate impacts. In some suits, they also allege that the companies have misrepresented risks related to their products.

Exxon Mobil Corp. is also a co-petitioner. The City of Boulder is a co-respondent.

Boulder alleges that the oil companies misled the public about the climate risks of fossil fuels.

The oil companies counter that state law doesn’t allow lawsuits to target a worldwide issue.

The state-level trial court denied the companies’ motion to dismiss the Boulder lawsuit. A divided Colorado Supreme Court affirmed.

The majority of the state’s high court acknowledged the U.S. Supreme Court’s precedents, which found that claims for relief for injuries alleged to have been caused by interstate pollution are exclusively governed by federal law. However, that court held that because Congress passed the federal Clean Air Act, state law was allowed to regulate interstate emissions, the companies’ petition said.

“There are few, if any, more consequential questions pending in the lower courts concerning the relationship between state and federal law,” the petition said, adding that the lawsuit belongs in federal court.

“Boulder, Colorado, cannot make energy policy for the entire country.”

The federal government filed a brief supporting the companies’ position.

Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Sarah Harris said that if the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling is allowed to stand, “every locality in the country could sue essentially anyone in the world for contributing to global climate change.”

In Executive Order 14260, President Donald Trump criticized state and local policies that seek to “regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authorities” by imposing barriers to interstate and international trade, subjecting energy producers to excessive fines.

In the April 2025 order, Trump directed the Department of Justice to take action to stop civil actions and the enforcement of state laws that claim to address “climate change,” “environmental justice,” “greenhouse gas” emissions, or “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) initiatives.

ESG is a set of standards that is used to measure an organization’s societal and environmental impact. The ESG movement began two decades ago with a U.N. initiative, outlined in a 2004 paper called “Who Cares Wins,” aimed at getting private companies in line with the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.

Attorneys for Boulder argued in a brief that the litigation should remain in state court.

“There is no constitutional bar to states addressing in-state harms caused by out-of-state conduct, be it the negligent design of an automobile or sale of asbestos,” the brief reads.

Detention Rules Challenged

The U.S. Supreme Court also announced on Aug. 4 that it will hear Genalo v. Black on Oct. 13.

The justices are expected to decide whether there is any point at which the U.S. Constitution requires certain immigration detainees to be given a bond hearing.

In this due process-based challenge, the high court will consider whether there is a limit on how long the federal government may detain a person under the Immigration and Nationality Act without a bond hearing.

The court will also consider “whether, in such a bond hearing, due process requires placing the burden on the government to justify the alien’s continued detention by clear and convincing evidence.”

In this case, two lawful permanent residents were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after criminal convictions.

Carol Williams Black was in immigration detention for around seven months. Keisy G.M. was detained for approximately 21 months.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that under Section 1226(c) of the Act, when detention is “unreasonably prolonged,” due-process protections kick in.

Looking to U.S. Supreme Court precedents, the panel found that both detainees should be given bond hearings.

The full Second Circuit voted to deny an en banc hearing in front of all the circuit’s judges. Several judges dissented.

The federal government asked the high court to review the Second Circuit’s denial of the appeal, citing a split among federal courts of appeals.

In its petition asking the justices to take the case, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said Section 1226(c) provides that the release of certain “criminal aliens” is prohibited, except on “narrow, witness-protection grounds.”

Congress created that prohibition “out of concern that [bond] hearings could not be trusted to reveal which ‘deportable criminal aliens who are not detained’ might ‘continue to engage in crime or fail to appear for their removal proceedings,’” Sauer said, citing Nielsen v. Preap (2019).

In Preap, the high court ruled that under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the government is allowed to detain and process defendants for deportation even if they are not federally detained immediately after being released from criminal custody.

Despite Preap, the Second Circuit panel still held that some Section 1226(c) detainees, specifically, those whose detention has been “unreasonably prolonged,” possess a due-process right to a bond hearing.

“The panel’s decision is seriously misguided,” the government said.

Counsel for the immigrants had urged the U.S. Supreme Court not to take up the case.

Respondent Carol Black voluntarily departed the United States and withdrew his appeal of the removal order against him. Respondent Keisy G.M. was released from detention in 2022, the immigrants’ attorney, Cecillia Wang of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, said in a brief.  

Black’s case is “unquestionably moot,” or legally irrelevant, she said. The government itself has stated that G.M.’s case is also moot, Wang said.

“It would be passing strange for this Court to entertain the government’s novel legal theory in a context where the government itself has previously described the state’s as purely academic.”

Black, who was born in Jamaica, completed concurrent terms of five years’ probation after being convicted under New York law of first-degree sexual abuse and child endangerment.

G.M. is a native of the Dominican Republic. He pled guilty to second-degree assault in a New York state court and was sentenced to two years in prison and three years of supervised release. He was released early from prison after 19 months for good behavior, Wang said.

Decisions in both cases are expected by June or July 2027.

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently on its summer recess.

While the court may not be sitting to hold oral arguments, the justices remain available to issue rulings on emergency appeals.