Justice Sonia Sotomayor has built a reputation as the Supreme Court's most outspoken liberal voice, but this week she took the extraordinary step of publicly reading a blistering dissent from the bench after the Court's conservative majority handed President Donald Trump a major victory on immigration. The unusual move underscored how deeply she disagreed with a decision that could reshape asylum policy for years to come.
In a 6-3 ruling split along ideological lines, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration may prevent migrants seeking asylum from reaching U.S. soil, allowing border officials to turn them away before they physically enter the country. The majority concluded on Thursday that people who stopped before crossing into the United States have not legally "arrived" for purposes of invoking asylum protections under federal immigration law.
