Demonstrators outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., during oral arguments in the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals cases. Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi / ALM

The coronavirus pandemic has become part of one of the U.S. Supreme Court's most important cases this term, potentially complicating its outcome. Whether and how the justices will be influenced by the crisis in their final deliberations is hard to gauge.

Lawyers for a group of "Dreamers," recipients of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program, informed the justices in a letter Friday that 27,000 recipients are health care workers and nearly 200 are medical students, residents and physicians, many now fighting the virus across the nation.

The Trump administration's plan to terminate the DACA program—the legality of which is now before the justices in three cases—would be "catastrophic," wrote Michael Wishnie of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, counsel of record in the case Wolf v. Vidal. "The pandemic sheds new light on the reliance interests of healthcare providers and the public health consequences of ignoring those interests."

It's rare that the justices are asked to address issues that come up after arguments. The letter from the DACA lawyers is not the first time that new events have made their way to the justices' attention in a pending case.

Last term, lawyers challenging the placement of a citizenship question on the 2020 census informed the court after April arguments that new evidence showed the government intended the question to give a political advantage to whites and Republicans and not, as the government claimed, to enforce the Voting Rights Act. Those lawyers urged the justices to send the case back to the district court for additional proceedings.

The justices, in a 5-4 decision by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., rejected the government's justification for the citizenship question, saying the evidence told a story that did not match the government's explanation.

The justices heard arguments in the DACA cases on Nov. 12 and likely already have taken draft votes on the outcome as well as crafted draft opinions. If the justices decide that the government acted legally in its effort to terminate the program, the Trump administration has indicated it will begin to enforce removal orders. The court's decision may affect the lives of nearly 700,000 "Dreamers," many now young adults.

Besides the loss of DACA recipients working to fight the virus, Wishnie told the justices that the pandemic reveals DACA recipients' impact on the economy and the importance of their participation in public health measures.

"Millions of family members, including U.S. citizens, rely upon DACA recipients for their economic and physical well-being," he wrote. "Furthermore, the forbearance from immigration enforcement that DACA affords promotes compliance by DACA recipients with stay-at-home orders and facilitates safe testing and treatment for COVID-19. These steps are essential to the public health measures now being taken to slow transmission of the virus and prevent the nation's healthcare system from being overwhelmed."

In his DACA letter, Wishnie urged similar action by the justices to what the census challengers sought last term: the opportunity for supplemental briefing on the scope and relevance of DACA reliance interests, including whether "in light of the extraordinary public health emergency" the issue should be sent back to the agency for reconsideration of its decision to terminate DACA.

Wishnie was joined in the letter by lawyers with the National Immigration Law Center and Make the Road New York.

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