It’s been a little difficult of late to pin down exactly where the Roberts Supreme Court sits on a philosophical scale. It is presumed to be a 5-4 conservative majority, and that presumption has held up under some important rulings. But here and there the high court has rendered decisions, joined variably by Chief Justice John Roberts and President Trump appointees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, that seem to put it all over the map, testing that presumption and contributing to a sense that the high court is at least as much a crapshoot as ever.

Consider Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, resulting in a decision to uphold the Obama-era executive order on DACA. There is growing, and welcome, consensus among conservatives that the DACA population, people brought to the United States illegally as children, ought to receive certain protections and treatment different from those who chose to break immigration laws on their own volition; the notion that one ought not be punished for the sins of the father, after all, is not inconsistent with conservative governing philosophy.