The US supreme court has given the Trump administration a green light to block asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border, in a decision that fundamentally reshapes the US asylum system.
The decision allows the Trump administration to revive its so-called turn-back or “metering” policy, allowing federal agents at the US border to stop migrants from physically setting foot on US soil, where federal law guarantees them the right to claim asylum and protection from persecution.
Because US immigration law entitles migrants arriving in the US to seek asylum, the supreme court case hinged on what, exactly, it means to “arrive in”.
In Justices Samuel Alito’s opinion, he wrote: “In ordinary speech, no one would say that a person ‘arrives in’ a place … before the person enters that place.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor pushed back strongly in her dissent: “The court’s illogical interpretation is driven almost entirely by a fixation on a single word: ‘in’. Words, however, must be read in context and with attention to how they fit into the statute as a whole.”
Human rights advocates have said that the court’s decision allows the Trump administration to essentially invalidate international and US asylum laws, which require government officials to inspect people arriving at ports of entry and ensure that they are not being turned back to dangerous conditions.
Supreme court lets Trump turn back asylum seekers at US-Mexico border
The vote was 6-3, with Justices Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett concurring. Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented, with the latter penning a biting 35-page long dissent – notably almost twice as long as the Alito majority opinion.
US supreme court allows Trump administration to strip Haitians and Syrians of protected status
The US supreme court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s bid to strip temporary protected status (TPS) from hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians, who were legally in the US and protected from deportation.
In another boost to Donald Trump’s unprecedented hardline crackdown on immigrants, including many of whom have lived legally in the US for years, the court issued a 6-3 ruling
The White House has requested Congress approve $87.6bn in new funding, much of which would go towards the costs of Donald Trump’s war with Iran, but a top Democrat has signaled the party will not support paying for an unpopular conflict that lawmakers never authorized.
Gun control advocates criticize ‘deeply dangerous’ supreme court decision on Hawaii law
The US supreme court struck down a restrictive gun law in the state of Hawaii that bans people from carrying guns in certain public spaces and on private property without the permission of the property’s owner.
New evidence has emerged that Robert F Kennedy Jr was on a vaccine-related “mission” when he visited Samoa ahead of a deadly measles outbreak in 2019, raising further questions about whether the US health secretary lied to the US Senate when he said the trip had “nothing to do with vaccines”.
Reflecting pool was cut with ‘sharp knife or razor’, National Park Service says
A senior National Park Service (NPS) official has said a liner along the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool was “cut with a sharp knife or razor” earlier this month, repeating Donald Trump’s claims of vandalism.
Frank Lands, the deputy director for operations for NPS, made the allegation in a court filing on Wednesday, as part of a lawsuit brought by a non-profit group seeking to stop the US president’s renovation of the site.
Senate Republicans reject Iran war powers measure after Trump pressure
Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution in a late-night vote, hours after they were berated by Donald Trump over opposition to his controversial war on Iran.
The US president was said to have harangued GOP senators during a lunch on Capitol Hill earlier on Wednesday. The previous day, they had angered the White House by allowing a vote to block Trump’s war in Iran.
What else happened today:
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California voters will get to decide in November whether billionaires should pay a one-time 5% tax, after a deadline passed on Thursday for its backers to withdraw the measure.
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The US supreme court has found in favor of the former Monsanto company in a ruling that is expected to block thousands of lawsuits filed by people alleging the key ingredient in the weed killer Roundup causes cancer.
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Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, boasted on Thursday of deporting 21,000 people from Alligator Alcatraz, as he confirmed the closure of the notorious immigration jail hastily erected in the Everglades that became a byword for cruelty and human rights abuses and environmental damage.
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The Pentagon has said that boot camps for all the military services are once again requiring the flu vaccination for all recruits amid a growing, weeks-long, flu outbreak at the US air force’s boot camp at Lackland air force base in San Antonio, Texas.
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Ron Wyden, US senator of Oregon, accused the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of preparing to use what he describes as an “unprecedented legal framework” to deport more than 500 unaccompanied migrant children currently in the custody of the agency’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).
Catching up? Here’s what happened on Wednesday 24 June.