A pair of immigration rulings sparked a clash among Supreme Court Justices on Thursday.
Following his 6-3 decision announcement on both cases, Justice Samuel Alito accused liberal colleagues of blindsiding on the Court bench.
The tension began after Alito announced the first ruling, which adopts a narrow interpretation of what constitutes arrival in the United States, reported CNN’s Joan Biskupic. Thus making it significantly harder for asylum seekers who traveled through Mexico and South America to qualify unless they physically set foot on U.S. soil.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor read a dissent lasting roughly 10 minutes, invoking the 1939 voyage of over 900 Jewish refugees turned away from Cuba and the United States, who later perished in the Holocaust. She tied the historical event to international treaties protecting people fleeing persecution.
Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined her dissent.
“Typically, it’s the justice who is reading the majority opinion who’s the only one who speaks,” Biskupic explained outside the courtroom.
“If somebody reads a dissent in this case, from the liberals really protesting what has happened in this refugee case.”
Alito responded from the bench, stating he would have said more had he known Sotomayor would deliver her dissent orally.
Alito then announced a second 6-3 ruling restricting Temporary Protected Status for migrants from Haiti and Syria.
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