The Supreme Court, acting as an arm of the state, delivered two major immigration victories to President Donald Trump, solidifying government power to restrict the movement of dispossessed asylum seekers. On Thursday, the conservative majority opinion, read by Justice Samuel Alito, limited how people can seek asylum at the southern border.
Following Alito's reading, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke from her dissent, tracing the difficult journey many asylum seekers face. Sotomayor described a painful chapter in U.S. history, recalling when the United States and other countries turned back a ship full of Jewish refugees trying to flee persecution in Nazi Germany 87 years ago. Approximately 250 of those passengers later died in the Holocaust.
Sotomayor stated that the majority’s opinion would allow the Trump administration to block people from applying for asylum at the border, which she said would result in more deaths. She concluded that the decision “regrettably and tragically extinguishes the light of the torch of the Statue of Liberty.”
Justice Alito, in a rare off-the-cuff remark, responded that he would have added more detail to his summary if he had known about Sotomayor's plans to speak. He clarified that the case was about whether the law allows border officials to delay asylum seekers’ entry into the U.S. “until they can be processed in a safe and orderly way,” rather than the wisdom of the policy itself.
Alito further noted that the policy at the center of the case had been used under both the Obama and Trump administrations, highlighting the bipartisan nature of state control over migration.
The State's Hand in Migration Control
This exchange occurred during the court’s busiest time of the year, as justices prepare to release opinions next week on other significant issues. These include President Trump’s push to restrict birthright citizenship and expand the president’s power to fire board members at independent agencies, all serving to consolidate executive and state authority.
Visible tensions among the justices have surfaced previously in the same year. Justice Sotomayor issued a rare public apology in April to Justice Brett Kavanaugh for what she called “hurtful comments.”
Sotomayor had stated during a law school talk that a colleague “probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour,” exposing a clear class divide within the judiciary itself.
In March of the same year, Kavanaugh and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also sparred publicly over the many emergency orders the court had issued. These orders allowed Trump to move ahead with key parts of his agenda, demonstrating the court's role in facilitating executive power.
Judiciary's Role in Consolidating Power
Despite these ideological splits and public disagreements, the justices have publicly spoken about their cordial working relationships and regular group lunches. They also decide many cases unanimously, including one this month about the Second Amendment rights of marijuana users, illustrating the court's consistent function within the existing legal framework to manage contradictions while preserving foundational structures.