Gorsuch: Supreme Court Should Not Set Policy

By    |   Wednesday, 28 December 2022 08:35 AM EST ET

(Newsmax)

Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch blasted "elected officials" in a dissenting opinion from Tuesday's 5-4 decision that allowed Title 42 to remain in effect.

The policy, established by the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowed for the expulsion of undocumented migrants due to health concerns.

The high court voted to grant a request by a group of Republican state attorneys general to put on hold a judge's decision invalidating Title 42 while it considered whether they could intervene to challenge the ruling.

Gorsuch, appointed by former President Donald Trump, was joined by Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, in the dissent.

"Courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency," Gorsuch wrote. "We are a court of law, not policymakers of last resort."

Gorsuch's words appear to acknowledge that the Supreme Court was being used for political purposes, Newsweek reported.

He said the court's decision was "unwise" and added that the emergency (pandemic) on which Title 42 rested "has long since lapsed."

In saying the states "contend that they face an immigration crisis at the border and policymakers have failed to agree on adequate measures to address it," Gorsuch added that "the current border crisis is not a COVID crisis."

That's not to say the judge does not understand the calamity of the southern border migrant surge.

"For my part, I do not discount the States' concerns," Gorsuch wrote. "Even the federal government acknowledges 'that the end of the Title 42 orders will likely have disruptive consequences.'"

Some conservatives praised Gorsuch and the other justices who opposed the states' application.

"On the Title 42 decision: This is the Supreme Court doing the job of Congress & the President. That's wrong. Good on Sotomayor, Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, & Gorsuch for dissenting," former Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., tweeted.

Associate Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor also voted in the minority, saying they would have denied the states' application.

According to a Gallup survey in October, Americans' trust in the judicial branch of the federal government sat at an all-time low of 47%.

Attention on the Supreme Court has increased greatly since June, when it overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

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Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch blasted "elected officials" in a dissenting opinion from Tuesday's 5-4 decision that allowed Title 42 to remain in effect.
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Wednesday, 28 December 2022 08:35 AM
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