Alito Rebukes Sotomayor After 6-3 Refugee Ruling as Oral Dissent Catches Him Off Guard
Updated
Updated · CNN · Jun 26
Alito Rebukes Sotomayor After 6-3 Refugee Ruling as Oral Dissent Catches Him Off Guard
3 articles · Updated · CNN · Jun 26
Summary
Justice Samuel Alito openly scolded Sonia Sotomayor from the bench after her 10-minute oral dissent in a 6-3 ruling that narrowed when migrants at the southern border can seek asylum.
Alito said he would have added to his own bench statement had he known she planned to speak, breaking the Supreme Court’s usual impassive decorum during end-of-term opinion announcements.
The majority held asylum screening begins only when a refugee physically steps onto US soil, reversing lower-court rulings that had allowed claims from people near the border and in the process of arriving.
Sotomayor called that reading “egregiously wrong,” invoked the 1939 M.S. St. Louis voyage of about 900 Jewish refugees, and argued postwar asylum law protects people at land borders and ports of entry.
The episode capped a rare public clash between the court’s conservative and liberal blocs in the final days of the term, when oral dissents are uncommon and typically signaled to colleagues in advance.