Which second‑term Trump executive orders reached the Supreme Court on the merits and what were the outcomes?

1. Which second‑term EOs actually reached the Supreme Court on the merits — a short list and why they mattered

The most prominent executive orders that advanced to the Supreme Court’s merits consideration were the birthright‑citizenship order (challenged in cases captioned Trump v. CASA and related suits), the administration’s sweeping tariffs imposed under a 1977 emergency statute (IEEPA), and high‑stakes questions about the president’s authority to remove officials at independent agencies (notably Trump v. Slaughter), because each presents a fundamental constitutional question about executive power and has generated multiple nationwide suits and appeals ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

2. Birthright citizenship — what the Court actually decided and what it left open

The Court confronted the birthright‑citizenship litigation but, according to the official syllabus, did not decide whether the executive order violated the Citizenship Clause or the Nationality Act; instead the Court’s opinion focused on whether federal courts possess equitable authority to issue “universal” or nationwide injunctions against enforcement of the executive order, effectively invalidating the broad remedial tool lower courts had used while leaving the underlying constitutional question unresolved on the merits ^{[1] [4]}.

3. Tariffs under IEEPA — merits briefing and an undecided high‑stakes test of emergency authority

The administration’s use of IEEPA to impose sweeping tariffs on trading partners was argued before the Court and became a central merits contest over the scope of presidential emergency authority; reporting shows the case was fully teed up for merits consideration with argument in November 2025, but as of mid‑January 2026 the Supreme Court had not issued a final merits decision and lower‑court rulings adverse to the administration remained the subject of the appeal ^{[2] [5] [6]}.

4. Removal power (Trump v. Slaughter and related cases) — looming revisit of Humphrey’s Executor

The Court agreed to decide whether statutory “for‑cause” protections for independent‑agency officials are compatible with the separation of powers and whether longstanding precedent such as Humphrey’s Executor should be overruled; that dispute—squarely on the merits docket in the 2025–26 term—threatens to reshape the structure of independent agencies, and as of reporting the outcome remained pending before the Court ^{[3] [7]}.

5. The shadow docket and interim orders — many EOs saw temporary wins for the administration that did not resolve merits

A recurring pattern in 2025 was the Court’s frequent use of interim or “shadow docket” orders to stay lower‑court injunctions and to greenlight administration actions for months while full merits litigation proceeded, conferring immediate practical effects even where the Justices later left major legal questions for full briefing; empirical and legal commentary documented that the Court’s emergency docket often favored the administration and that those interim rulings can be outcome‑determinative for affected people even if the merits are unresolved ^{[8] [9] [7]}.

6. Takeaway: what reached the merits and what were the outcomes as of early 2026

In short, the birthright‑citizenship EO reached the Supreme Court but the Court’s decision addressed remedies—striking down universal injunctions—rather than the constitutional merits ^[1]; the tariffs case was fully briefed and argued on the merits but had not produced a final merits opinion as of January 2026 ^{[2] [5]}; and the removal‑power challenge (Trump v. Slaughter) was granted for plenary review and awaited decision, with potentially sweeping consequences for the administrative state ^[3]. Reporting limitations preclude definitive statements about final merits outcomes beyond these procedural and docket statuses in the supplied sources.