The Supreme Court has just ruled that asylum seekers can't use habeas corpus petitions to stop deportation when they never got a fair hearing on their claim. THIS IS JUST DEVASTATING.

SCOTUS opinion in DHS v. Thuraissigiam.

https://supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-161_g314.pdf

It is devastating not only in what it means for asylum seekers today. But in the way it interprets history--the way that immigrants used habeas corpus to prevent deportation in past. I will write why in a thread over next few days.

I have researched--in INS archives, archives of the court, and in attorney papers--the Supreme Court case Tod v. Waldman, which is precisely about a refugee using habeas to prevent exclusion in the 1920s. Justice Breyer interpreted this case wrong in Jennings and again here.

One of the biggest similarities between what happened in Tod v. Waldman and what happened in this case has to do with COMMUNICATION problems at the interview. This is such a big problem in asylum proceedings today.

Then, beyond procedure, there is the legal issue of country conditions, which in Tod and in this case, those who reviewed the interview did not assess.

I am so heartened by the dissent's (in THURAISSIGIAM) reading of fugitive slave cases as precedents for those of immigrants. A ray of light.

TRUTH from Sotomayor: "this Court persistently construed immigration statutes stripping courts of judicial review to avoid depriving noncitizens of constitutional habeas guarantees." The majority "sweeps aside most of our immigration history in service of its conclusion."

This is an important point. Majority dismissed non-asylum claims raised that it should not have. https://twitter.com/ahilan_toolong/status/1276250691229474817?s=20