The U.S. Supreme Court is famous for its quiet dignity and carefully measured disagreements. Open displays of frustration between justices are rare. That’s why Thursday’s courtroom exchange following two major immigration rulings immediately drew attention from legal observers covering the Court.
According to CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic, an unusually tense moment unfolded after Justice Samuel Alito delivered one of the Court’s opinions involving President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.
Biskupic described the scene this way:
“It really was, Dana, and it boiled over in this one encounter between Justice Alito and Justice Sotomayor, who was dissenting from both of these immigration cases.”
The Supreme Court released two 6-3 decisions involving immigration policy.
One case addressed asylum seekers arriving at the southern border and whether migrants who are prevented from physically entering the United States can invoke certain asylum protections. The second involved the administration’s authority regarding Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a humanitarian designation that allows eligible foreign nationals from certain countries to remain in the United States temporarily because of conditions in their home nations.
Both rulings divided the Court along its familiar ideological lines. But it wasn’t simply the decisions themselves that became the story. It was what happened immediately afterward.
According to Biskupic, Justice Sonia Sotomayor rose to read an extensive dissent after Alito finished announcing the Court’s opinion in the asylum case.
Rather than limiting herself to a technical legal disagreement, Sotomayor reportedly opened by emphasizing what she viewed as the moral implications of denying refuge to people fleeing persecution.
She also referenced one of history’s darkest chapters.
According to CNN’s account, Sotomayor recalled the 1939 voyage of the MS St. Louis, the ship carrying hundreds of Jewish refugees who were denied entry into Cuba and later the United States before many passengers ultimately perished during the Holocaust.
Biskupic described the dissent as significantly longer than Alito’s presentation of the majority opinion.
According to Biskupic:
“The first thing he says before he starts to recount the temporary protected status opinion… he says, ‘If I had known what the dissent was going to say, I would have explained my ruling more.'”
She added:
“He just sits there kind of stone-faced, and everyone’s like, wow! And he definitely suggested he was blindsided.”
Biskupic went on to describe Alito as delivering the next opinion with what she characterized as visible irritation.
“He then goes, with just anger dripping from his voice, to then detail what they were ruling in the temporary protected status case.”
Because the proceedings inside the Supreme Court are not televised, the public must rely on journalists present in the courtroom to describe the justices’ tone, demeanor and interactions.
The underlying legal issues remain highly significant.
The asylum case focused on the executive branch’s authority to restrict when migrants are legally considered to have entered the United States for purposes of seeking asylum. Supporters argue tighter border procedures are necessary to maintain an orderly immigration system. Opponents contend the policies make it more difficult for legitimate asylum seekers fleeing persecution to obtain protections Congress intended them to have.
The Temporary Protected Status ruling likewise carries immediate consequences for thousands of migrants whose legal ability to remain in the United States depends upon executive branch decisions.
The Court’s conservative majority concluded the administration acted within its legal authority, while the liberal justices strongly disagreed.
Justice Elena Kagan also authored a dissent in the TPS case but chose not to read it from the bench.
Biskupic suggested the dramatic exchange between Alito and Sotomayor may have been enough courtroom drama for one morning.
Here’s the full transcript:
CNN ANCHOR DANA BASH: In the Supreme Court, in the chamber, when the justices put forward these two opinions, I can’t imagine how it felt in there, because we’ve seen the divide over and over again, but this was really explicit.
CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST JOAN BISKUPIC: It really was, Dana, and it boiled over in this one encounter between Justice Alito and Justice Sotomayor, who was dissenting from both of these immigration cases, and actually all three of the cases that Samuel Alito read today from the bench.
And after he finished the Mexican one, the one about the border and the definition of has somebody arrived or not arrived and you know that involves border agents going out and actually blocking asylum seekers from getting in.
There’s all sorts of good reasons for why administrations, and not just the Trump administration, the administration before it and the Biden administration for a while, wants to limit who’s coming, but the method is one that’s very controversial.
And after he finished explaining why that was perfectly legitimate for the administration to do, to block these asylum seekers, Justice Sotomayor said, “I have a dissent here.”.
Now, Justice Alito paused. So he must have known that something was coming from her. But I’ll pick up on how he responded after she spoke.
She begins, Dana, by talking about the moral imperative of allowing asylum seekers who are fleeing serious persecution from coming to America, allowing them to come to America. And she recalls… Incidents from the Nazi Germany era, specifically one episode when 900 Jews were on a ship trying to get to, first Cuba and then to the U.S.
And they were turned back in 1939. They go back to Germany, about ha– a substantial portion of them end up dying in concentration camps.
And she brings that to the fore immediately as she’s starting to dissent about this case involving the Mexican border.
And then she talks about kind of the narrow idea of asylum that the majority has captured here and also talks about how it’s really a way to circumvent the legitimate statutes that are on the books here, the way that the minority has read it.
She finishes… She takes about three times as long as Sam Alito had taken to deliver the actual opinion.
And the first thing he says before he starts to recount the temporary protected status opinion that he also has, he says, “If I had known what the dissent was going to say, I would have explained my ruling more.”.
And he just sits there kind of stone-faced, and everyone’s like, wow! And he definitely suggested he was blindsided. I have a feeling that she might have said maybe right before they were going on the bench. You know, hey, Sam, I’ve got something to say.
But then he then goes, with just anger dripping from his voice, to then detail what they were ruling in the temporary protected status case.
And as you just heard from Priscilla, that ruling really will affect a lot of people immediately. And the liberals dissented from that in a very strongly worded statement from Justice Elena Kagan.
But she chose not to read anything from the bench, probably because there had been enough fireworks for the morning at that point.
