The Supreme Court on Friday issued a 5-4 ruling upholding the Trump administration's public charge rule, which withholds green cards from immigrants that are dependant on government welfare programs. Typically, the government looks at cash assistance programs but the Trump administration recently expanded that rule to include non-cash assistance programs, like food stamps, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
The policy follows under the Immigration and Nationality Act and makes a legal immigrant ineligible for a green card if they are deemed “likely at any time to become a public charge."
Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, at which point she accused her conservative colleagues on the court of having a bias that favors the Trump administration.
“Today’s decision follows a now-familiar pattern. The Government seeks emergency relief from this Court, asking it to grant a stay where two lower courts have not. The Government insists—even though review in a court of appeals is imminent—that it will suffer irreparable harm if this Court does not grant a stay. And the Court yields," Sotomayor wrote.
"Claiming one emergency after another, the Government has recently sought stays in an unprecedented number of cases, demanding immediate attention and consuming limited Court resources in each. And with each successive application, of course, its cries of urgency ring increasingly hollow," her opinion read. "Indeed, its behavior relating to the public-charge rule in particular shows how much its own definition of irreparable harm has shifted. Having first sought a stay in the New York cases based, in large part, on the purported harm created by a nationwide injunction, it now disclaims that rationale and insists that the harm is its temporary inability to enforce its goals in one State."
It's interesting that Sotomayor is okay with "the Resistance's" unprecedented use of the nationwide injunction to fight the administration at every step. She seems completely fine with judges instantly blocking the Trump administration but takes issue with Trump seeking immediate relief himself.
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Back in November, Attorney General William Barr said over 40 nationwide injunctions had been issued between the time Trump took office and September of 2019. During that same time period under President Obama, only two nationwide injunctions were issued and both of were immediately squashed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
"Perhaps most troublingly, the Court’s recent behavior on stay applications has benefited one litigant over all others. This Court often permits executions—where the risk of irreparable harm is the loss of life—to proceed, justifying many of those decisions on purported failures “to raise any potentially meritorious claims in a timely manner," the justice explained. "Yet the Court’s concerns over quick decisions wither when prodded by the Government in far less compelling circumstances— where the Government itself chose to wait to seek relief, and where its claimed harm is continuation of a 20-year status quo in one State. I fear that this disparity in treatment erodes the fair and balanced decisionmaking process that this Court must strive to protect."
Those on the left were quick to applaud Sotomayor's dissent. They ran with the typical talking points: "it's a dark time in our nation's history," "this is a warning" and some version of "Orange Man Bad."
Just look at some of the blue check mark lefties on Twitter who are suddenly worried about the judiciary:
The majority on SCOTUS has little loyalty to the Constitution, the legislative branch, or democracy. Their masters are the Federalist society, the Right wing, and the Republican Party. They have made the Court system into a joke. https://t.co/IVr4PME78K
— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) February 22, 2020
Democracy isn’t dying in darkness, it’s dying in the plain light of day. With every turn of the head & shrug of the shoulders, with every handshake hung on quid pro quo, our democratic institutions are under siege in clandestine silence.
— Trish Zornio (@trish_zornio) February 22, 2020
Sonia Sotomayor https://t.co/KycZJ0iLZQ
Objectivity is the supreme court’s bedrock. Without that, it ceases to be the firebreak in a functioning democracy. Regardless of your political allegiance, this is exactly the type of dissent we must all take very, very seriously. https://t.co/0IWFOtstGd
— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) February 22, 2020
Sotomayor: “the Supreme Court’s conservatives repeatedly accept the DOJ’s declarations of an “emergency,” giving Donald Trump whatever he wants.”
— Amy Siskind ?????? (@Amy_Siskind) February 22, 2020
We need to take back the Senate. Job #1 in November. Adopt a candidate! https://t.co/swRjk4qf1U
We should all be as angry as Justice Sotomayor that the Supreme Court's conservatives keep bending over backward to let the Trump administration twist the law against legal immigration. https://t.co/onDnfnXRQX @Slate
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) February 22, 2020
SCOTUS is busy writing new laws with its stolen Republican Majority: Trump can do whatever he wants. Ya know, because judicial restraint.https://t.co/v3dtwOwbUF
— Grant Stern (@grantstern) February 22, 2020
#SCOTUS IS A RIGHTWING RUBBER STAMP
— Peter Daou (@peterdaou) February 22, 2020
The GOP took over the #SupremeCourt by force.
They stole a seat, then forced an accused sexual assaulter onto the bench.#Sotomayor is right that its fealty is to Trump. https://t.co/rfLXKm7Lfo
Justice Sonia Sotomayor is a patriot, and this is what happens when a patriot loves our country: they hold up a mirror to the ugliest parts of our governance. The Supreme Court is broken and favoring Trump's political agenda.
— Charlotte Clymer ?????? (@cmclymer) February 22, 2020
Justice Sotomayor is warning us.
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) February 22, 2020
If Trump wins, the Supreme Court and the federal bench will be lost for decades.
And all of your progressive plans on jobs, health care, education, immigration or criminal justice reform will be struck down by the courts.https://t.co/ULR1B5Mvcd
A few conservatives were quick to remind the left of one issue: they were focused on the Supreme Court for so long that they completely neglected the lower courts. There were hundreds of vacant seats on the district and appellate levels. President Trump recognized that, began nominating judges and the Senate confirmed them.
So delicious. Trump gets re-elected and he likely will, SCOTUS gone for a generation or two. 50% of federal judiciary replaced with young originalist judges who will dismantle the Administrative State. We might just have a chance at restoring the American Republic. https://t.co/1C2E5F1VZO
— Ned Ryun (@nedryun) February 22, 2020
Justice Sotomayor upset Supreme Court majority restraining judicial activism against @realDonaldTrump. https://t.co/AbHKchhiir
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) February 22, 2020
The judiciary is being set up for decades of success, at least on the judicial restraint front. If you look at the justices that Democrats typically nominate, they partake in judicial activism. They use their power on the court to determine what law should or should not be based on their political ideology and beliefs. In a sense, they're legislating from the bench in the disguise of being objective, when they're anything but.
Lefties are clinging to Sotomayor's dissent as evidence that the conservative justices are biased. The reality is the conservative justices are applying judicial restraint and an originalist interpretation of the Constitution. And guess what? When SCOTUS vacancies come up, where do presidents typically look? The lower courts. And they're being filled with awesome conservatives.
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