Vox Sentences: The Supreme Court takes on immigration

SCOTUS decides it needs more hot-button political issues this term; a surprise prisoner swap caps the US/Iran nuclear deal; and Flint is officially a federal emergency.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

Reading the tea leaves in the Supreme Court immigration case

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

• The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the lawsuit challenging President Obama's 2014 executive actions on immigration, which attempted to protect millions of unauthorized immigrants from deportation.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• The Court is expected to hear oral arguments and rule on the case thie term — before Obama leaves office.

• The case before the Supremes is actually broader than it was in lower courts: it's not only going to be evaluating whether the executive actions were illegal under federal law, but whether they were unconstitutional under the claim that the Obama administration violated its constitutional duty to "take care" that the laws are enforced.

  [SCOTUSblog / Lyle Denniston]

• If you're into tea-leaf reading, you should treat the timing as a good sign for the Obama administration, and the added constitutional question as a good sign for the states suing Obama.

  [Washington Post / Ilya Somin]

• The case has implications beyond immigration law. Some law scholars argue that simply by finding the states have legal authority to sue, the court could be opening the floodgates for gajillions of state challenges to White House policy.

  [Washington University of St. Louis / Stephen Legomsky]

• It also, of course, has implications for the lives of millions of immigrants who are waiting to see if they'll be able to apply for protection — and if it will be worth the risk that doing so will make them targets for President Trump.

  [Washington Post / Pamela Constable]

Jason Rezaian comes home

Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post via Getty

• Three Americans, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, have returned to the US after being released from Iranian prison.

  [Washington Post / Andrew Roth, Carol Morello and William Branigin]

• Rezaian and the other captives were released in exchange for the US releasing 7 Iranians in a prisoner swap on Saturday.

• The swap took place shortly after the US and Iran officially commemorated "Implementation Day": the day the nuclear deal between the two countries officially goes into effect.

  [NPR / Jackie Northam]

• As part of implementation, international sanctions against Iran were lifted. But after the American prisoners were released, the US turned around and slapped a new round of sanctions on 11 people and companies over a missile test last fall.

  [Washington Post / Andrew Roth, Carol Morello and William Branigin]

• The story of how the prisoner swap got negotiated is fascinating. The story of how reporters found out about it, but decided to keep it from the public, is even more fascinating.

  [Huffington Post / Ryan Grim]

• There are a lot of questions about the relationship between the nuclear deal and the prisoner swap, and whether this development vindicates the Obama administration's decision to engage with Iran.

  [Vox / Max Fisher]

• But it is unquestionably good that these men have been freed. They popped champagne the minute they left Iranian airspace to celebrate.

  [Associated Press]

• Oh, and those Iranian prisoners? None of them actually returned to Iran. They decided to stay in the US.

  [ABC News / Justin Fishel and Mike Levine]

Flint learns that with great aid comes great politicization

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

• President Obama signed an order over the weekend declaring a federal state of emergency in Flint, MI, which allows FEMA and other federal agencies to help state and local government address the city's water crisis.

  [Chicago Tribune / Niraj Chokshi]

• Here's Vox's explainer on how the Flint water crisis happened, and how it got so bad.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• Lead in water is a nationwide issue — it's at poisonous levels in many of America's cities.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• But in Flint, it is really bad. Really, really bad. (This graphic shows just how bad.)

  [Washington Post / Christopher Ingraham]

• With federal attention, however, comes politicization. Hillary Clinton discussed Flint in her closing remarks during Sunday's Democratic debate, which led to an endorsement from Flint's mayor...

  [Huffington Post / Amanda Terkel and Tyler Tynes]

• ...and a finger-wagging tweet from Republican governor Rick Snyder, accusing Clinton of finger-pointing.

  [Gov. Rick Snyder via Twitter]

• In Snyder's own party, the first candidate to be asked about Flint — Marco Rubio — replied simply that he didn't know much about the matter because he hadn't been fully briefed.

  [Think Progress / Alice Ollstein]

MISCELLANEOUS

Thalidomide has been the poster child for dangerous, untested medicines for over fifty years. But it turns out there's one thing it's good at: fighting cancer. [Atlas Obscura / Natalie Zarrelli]

• Drinking during pregnancy has kind of been destigmatized in recent years, so it's worth emphasizing: the American Academy of Pediatrics say there's no safe level of alcohol consumption during pregnancy, and fetal alcohol syndrome can leave people developmentally stunted for the rest of their lives.

  [Washington Post / Alexandra Rockey Fleming]

• Rooftop solar panels are a great source of renewable energy. But are power companies using them to avoid going green themselves?

  [Mother Jones / Tim McDonnell]

• Last month, the first flowers to be grown in space (zinnias) almost died. Here's how ISS astronauts saved them.

  [Gizmodo / Mika McKinnon]

• Universal voting by mail increases turnout and makes voter suppression harder. So why aren't voting rights groups pushing for it?

  [Washington Monthly / Phil Keisling]

VERBATIM

"The most obvious thing to say about true-crime documentaries is something that, surprisingly often, goes unsaid: they turn people’s private tragedies into public entertainment." [New Yorker / Kathryn Schulz]

• "It’s okay to yell at your father all you want when he’s a serial killer."

  [Kerri Rawson via Wichita Eagle / Roy Wenzl]

• "The year is 2056, and scientists have just created the first computer with superhuman intelligence. Aware of the risks, the programmers trained it in ethics. The machine functions flawlessly. Aiming to maximise happiness in the universe, and calculating that sentient beings are happy less than half the time, the computer exterminates all sentient life. The balance of happiness increases from negative to zero – only there’s nobody left to enjoy it."

  [New Scientist / Jonathon Keats]

• "There is a reason that blacks appear to have been spared the worst of the narcotic epidemic, said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a drug abuse expert. Studies have found that doctors are much more reluctant to prescribe painkillers to minority patients, worrying that they might sell them or become addicted."

  [NYT / Gina Kolata and Sarah Cohen]

• "In many ways, the travails of Mr. Bush’s presidential campaign can be seen as perhaps the last, wheezing gasp of the WASP power structure."

  [NYT / Ashley Parker]

WATCH THIS

The video the Illuminati doesn’t want you to see [YouTube / Phil Edwards, Joe Posner, Sarah Turbin]

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