This is absolutely awful. Alito has ripped apart due process protections for people who are on US soil.
As of today, Al Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have more access to the right of habeas corpus than asylum seekers fleeing harm.
As of today, Al Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have more access to the right of habeas corpus than asylum seekers fleeing harm.
Alito's citations in dicta and footnotes of the blatantly political Trump administration's attacks on asylum, as if they're neutral facts about the asylum process, make me want to tear out my hair.
ARGH. This citation to a highly political EOIR document that is actually pretty darn deceptive, because the number one reason that asylum seekers found to have a credible fear don't pursue asylum is lack of access to counsel and the awful conditions in detention centers.
Oh god, this statistic is so wrong. THIS IS NOT WHAT THE DATA SHOWS. The chart that he's referencing is deceptive because it doesn't represent the thing he cites it for; how many credible fear claims result in a grant of asylum, because it's a 1-year completion-based snapshot!
Here's the thrust of it. After using statistics and data manipulated by the Trump administration to falsely claim that most asylum seekers are fraudulent (Just this week, DHS admitted it HAS NO DATA ON FRAUDULENT CLAIMS), Alito reaches the conclusion first and justifies it later.
With all due respect Justice Alito, go jump into a lake.
Under the decision today, the Supreme Court endorses a Third Circuit decision saying that asylum seekers may not challenge their detention inside the US even years after they were arrested... because they were arrested right after entering the US.
The Constitution weeps.
The Constitution weeps.
If anyone needs a citation for my claim that DHS said it doesn't collect data on fraudulent claims, here you go. This is from earlier this week. s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspect…
Because the Trump administration has shut down the border already and since March has effectively stopped using the expedited removal process, today's decision will not affect that many people immediately. But it undermines backstop constitutional protections going forward.
One final note. At the start of this thread I made a comparison to Guantamao. But Guantanamo is a place in which peoples' rights are routinely violated. I didn't intend to imply that people held there "deserve" having their rights violated in a way that asylum seekers don't.
