Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies during the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearing on her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill in Washington, on March 22, 2022. Credit: REUTERS/Michael A McCoy
In a dissent included in an unsigned order released by the Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson scolded her colleagues for not giving enough serious consideration to all parties involved in an emergency appeal from Donald Trump's Department of Justice.
As the New York Times reported, the majority ruled in favor of the president by revoking a policy put in place under former President Joe Biden that is allowing more than 500,000 immigrants to stay in the U.S. temporarily on humanitarian grounds.
The ruling means immigrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti now face the threat of being swiftly deported while their individual cases are still under review in the U.S.
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The court wrote an "order entered by the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts ... is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought. Should certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically."
That earned a scathing response from Justice Brown Jackson that the majority had screwed up.
"The Court has plainly botched this assessment today," she wrote. "It requires next to nothing from the Government with respect to irreparable harm. And it undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending."
She advised, "Even if the Government is likely to win on the merits, in our legal system, success takes time and the stay standards require more than anticipated victory. I would have denied the Government’s application because its harm-related showing is patently insufficient. The balance of the equities also weighs heavily in respondents’ favor."
"While it is apparent that the Government seeks a stay to enable it to inflict maximum predecision damage, court-ordered stays exist to minimize — not maximize — harm to litigating parties," she asserted.
You can read the filing here.