Outcry After Supreme Court Stay Reinstates 'Depraved' Trump Administration Remain in Mexico Policy

The Supreme Court on Wednesday reinstated President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policye, drawing condemnation from the ACLU, which warned of the consequences of the policy’s continued use.

The reinstatement is the result of the high court issuing a stay on a ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals halting the policy.

“The Court of Appeals unequivocally declared this policy to be illegal,” the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project’s special counsel Judy Rabinovitz said in a statement. “The Supreme Court should as well. Asylum seekers face grave danger and irreversible harm every day this depraved policy remains in effect.” 

The ruling was nearly unanimous with only Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissenting. No reason was given for the ruling or dissent in the brief. 

As the New York Times reported, the stay is part of a developing pattern for the White House:

The Supreme Court has recently reversed several injunctions issued by lower courts blocking aspects of the administration’s tough new immigration policies. In a pair of recent decisions, for instance, the court lifted injunctions that had blocked the administration’s plans to deny green cards to immigrants who were thought to be likely to become “public charges” by even the occasional and minor use of public benefits like Medicaid, food stamps and housing vouchers.

Sotomayor, the Times noted, referenced the impulse of the administration to run to the court when faced with rulings the White House doesn’t care for in a dissent from the “public charge” dispute in February. 

“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,” wrote Sotomayor. “And with each successive application, of course, its cries of urgency ring increasingly hollow.”