Shawn Fleetwood writes for the Federalist about two Supreme Court justices who are sending messages to federal judges.
The phenomenon of rogue judges ignoring the Constitution and the Supreme Court in favor of partisan outcomes is growing every day. And it looks like Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have taken notice.
Across a pair of decisions issued Thursday (both authored by Alito), the two senior justices separately rebuked several lower courts for sidestepping immigration law and the high court’s past rulings. The cases were Mullin v. Doe and Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, in which the court upheld President Trump’s revocation of Temporary Protected Status for foreign nationals and affirmed that asylum seekers do not “arriv[e] in the United States” when they’re standing on the Mexican side of the border, respectively.
In his Al Otro Lado concurrence, Thomas noted how the federal immigration law at issue (“Immigration and Nationality Act”) bars federal courts from having jurisdiction over and the authority to “‘enjoin or restrain the operation of ‘ certain parts of the INA.” Citing a past related SCOTUS ruling (Garland v. Aleman Gonzalez), he further highlighted how the law’s exception “only for relief granted on an individual basis” takes away lower courts’ “‘jurisdiction or authority’ to ‘enjoin or restrain the operation of ’” these parts of the INA on a classwide basis.”
Put another [way], lower courts cannot certify a class of individuals and then issue an injunction covering those individuals under these provisions of the INA.
Thomas noted how the challengers in Al Otro Lado nevertheless “sought relief” that the statute explicitly “prohibits.” …
… The current court’s longest-serving justice further argued that “the relief that the District Court provided may well have unconstitutionally infringed on the President’s inherent authority to exclude aliens from the country.” …
… Meanwhile, Alito’s critique of rogue lower courts and their indulgence of leftists’ judicial coup against the president was much more subtle.
