Legal experts lash out at 'racist' Supreme Court ruling

Legal analysts and scholars are lashing out at the U.S. Supreme Court conservatives after another round of decisions.

Taking to social media on Thursday morning, commentators trashed one ruling in particular: President Donald Trump's decision to block asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The case concerned the temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants, which the U.S. had allowed until Trump paused it in 2021. The law states that any noncitizen who is “physically present in the United States” or “arrives in the United States” can apply for asylum. Anyone who announces that they seek protection are entitled to have their claim evaluated, according to the Constitution.

What the High Court did was play on the technicality of the asylum seekers' location.

"The Supreme Court’s rightwing majority rules that courts cannot review the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to terminate temporary protected status for refugees fleeing particularly dangerous countries," complained Kate Riga, who covers the Supreme Court for TPM.

"In effect, this means that thousands of Haitian and Syrian refugees will be sent back to places so dangerous that, in Haiti’s case, the State Department recommends leaving behind dental records to help identify remains," she added before bashing Justice Samuel Alito's ruling, in particular, as "racist."

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie also bashed Alito by paraphrasing the justice.

"Sam Alito: It is the worst kind of discrimination to create majority-minority congressional districts and so we are going to kill the Voting Rights Act. Also, Sam Alito: There is nothing we can do if the president cancels legal status because he thinks the United States is a white country," said Bouie.

"It is abundantly clear from Alito's jurisprudence that he thinks the only real racism is discrimination against white people," Bouie added. "Like, this is sophistry. Why does the administration oppose TPS Justice Alito? Why does it reject asylum claims from virtually every group of people other than white South Africans?"

Jerry Edwards, associate professor of law at West Virginia University, wrote, "Samuel Alito shares Andrew Johnson's vision of the Constitution." Johnson was widely considered a white supremacist, the Constitution Center explains.

As Politico's Kyle Cheney cited, "SCOTUS majority says there are 'race-neutral' reasons why Trump/Noem ended TPS but notes that their commentary on Haitian immigrants would have 'scandalized the public just a short time ago.'"

Lawfare editor Tyler McBrian commented, "Every SCOTUS opinion now is like "in a 6-3 opinion, the Court rules that doctors can start prescribing cocaine to children again."

Constitutional scholar Robert Black wrote, "Y'know how I'm always saying that when people say 'I'm not racist' what they mean is 'I am correct in my racist beliefs?' Well, uhhh, Supreme Court edition..."

One responder asked, "So is the idea here that courts are obligated to see if they can construct even a ludicrous non-racist rationale for a policy before they can rule against it?"

Edwards replied to the comment saying, "Only if the conservatives want to rule in favor of the government. Not long ago, Thomas and Alito had an absolute meltdown when SCOTUS denied cert in a case race-neutral affirmative action case because they claimed two of the school board members made racist comments (proving it was an AA policy)."

But Alito wasn't the only one drawing criticism. Justice Clarence Thomas penned his own individual opinion on the matter.

As appellate attorney Gabriel Malor wrote on BlueSky, "Justice Thomas, writing only for himself, says that the Fifth Amendment's due process clause does not guarantee equal protection."

He referenced Thomas' statement saying, "Because the Fifth Amendment has no Equal Protection Clause, this Court was wrong to read equal protection into it in Bolling v. Sharpe ... And even the Due Process Clause does not prohibit some discrimination, it would not do so in a case about immigration status."

Associate Professor Evan Bernick at the University of Illinois School of Law said he would refrain from yelling about the ruling at length. Instead, he wrote, "I'm just going to observe that the equal protection analysis is almost entirely unsupported by citations to relevant authority. There's a cursory cite to one leading opinion and then a bunch of handwaving. Nothing in the Constitution or even SCOTUS doctrine — even at its worst — requires that we think about race in the context of immigration decisions this way, and we simply should not."

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