The NYT reports in "Supreme Court Lets Trump End Deportation Protection for Haitians and Syrians/President Trump has pushed to rescind Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of people from countries convulsed by humanitarian crises."
Here's the full opinion: Mullin v. Doe. Excerpt from the majority opinion, written by Justice Alito:
None of the cited statements by either the President or the Secretary was overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications. For example, one may oppose TPS and favor tighter restrictions on immigration for economic or other reasons that have nothing to do with race. And a person without racial bias can provide a harshly unfavorable description of living conditions in some of the countries with TPS designations....Political discourse by prominent public figures is increasingly couched in terms that would have scandalized the public just a short time ago.... But whatever one may think of the cited statements, they are insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people....
From the dissenting opinion by Justice Kagan:
The evidence [the Haiti plaintiffs] have offered includes statements by the President so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print.... So here are some of those statements. Haitians are “eating the dogs . . . . They’re eating the cats. They’re eating—they’re eating the pets of the people that live [in Springfield, Ohio].” And: Haitians are also eating “other things too that they’re not supposed to be.” And: Haitians in the United States “probably have AIDS.” And: Haiti is a “shithole country,” which is “filthy, dirty, [and] disgusting.” And: Haitian immigration is “like a death wish for our country.” And: Haitians, along with some others, are “poisoning the blood” of our country. And: “Why is it we only take people from shithole countries” like “Haiti [and] Somalia”? “Why cannot we have some people from Norway [and] Sweden?” The majority briefly replies that those remarks are not “overtly racial,” but it is hard to know what that means. Haitians are Black. (Norwegians and Swedes not so much.) The references—of filth, disease, and primitiveness—are shot through with racial stereotypes and tropes. It is hard to imagine the statements being made today of any White community. No very “sensitive inquiry,” of the kind Arlington Heights compels, is needed to see them for what they are, 429 U. S., at 266; judges, as we often say, are “not required to exhibit a naiveté from which ordinary citizens are free,” Department of Commerce, 588 U. S., at 785. The statements fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the President’s resolve to remove Haitians from this country....
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74 comments:
Has Trump ever actually admitted he made the "shithole" comments or was he ever quoted saying it in a transcript? Otherwise, it is just Dems saying that he said it, which sounds like hearsay.
"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there." - Nick the lounge singer (2026)
I'm in the 'End the Irony !' camp - the one that says, 'Hey all these people that want to be granted amnesty because their country has descended into a chaotic, smoking ruin, deforested, stripped as if by locusts, a muddy sh*thole run by violent gangs - they want amnesty from the thing they created, so let's bring them here ! Hey, what sane person would do that? No.'
Justice Kagan: "Haitians are Black. (Norwegians and Swedes not so much.)"
Norway and Sweden may be prepared to send us their immigrants from the same countries contemplated in the current programs. We should be prepared to vet them (what a concept), and make our own deportation determinations based on character.
Even if I agreed with Kagan those statements are offensive, she fails to provide evidence they are racial. It would be like saying “basket of deplorables” is racially charged. Offensive statements also doesn’t justify giving foreign nationals the ability to enter and stay in our country, nor does it seem a basis of law. If it were otherwise, then does Kagan allow it to work in reverse? If a foreign national here in the US force immediate removal for offensive statements to Americans? I know what Trump thinks of that last question, but is Kagan and the minority consistent in application of law or grandstanding as unbecoming of a justice?
Nice to know words like temporary can occasionally be relied upon to mean what they say.
Haiti is controlled by warlords/gangs. Haiti began as an overpopulated slave colony, and the slaves successfully revolted to form their own system. It has been a violent and tribal place from the very start, and outsiders have steered clear since the founding revolution.
Asylum means letting a member of one gang avoid the other gangs -- basically a prison culture expanded across the entire place.
Those THREE are really getting annoying.
Kagan's response made me recall the Althouse linked clip of the video for ""they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs". That performer was funny.
Too bad. We owe the syrians after all the mayhem our CIA ratfuckers have caused there.
These decisions are the #1 reason why I voted DJT2024.
Conservatives might get wiped out of elective office in 2026 and 2028, but we still have the Supreme Court.
I don't think the D's will expand the Court and pack the Court in 2028.
If they do, I predict there will be a full blown hot Civil War that will make the first Civil war look tame.
"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats."
Maybe that was meant to be a Simpsons reference.
So if Haiti and Syria aren't terrible places, no one from there needs asylum.
It's the word Temporary that they seem to be struggling over.... And if you want to compare Norway with Haiti regards excrement in the streets, ok, let's just do that.
...I'm sure Kagan's paragraph is meant as a tent stake to besmirch Trump forever but I've seen examples of this backfiring on perps like. I'm sure there are examples in the corut record...
The dissent is arguing that race is responsible for those conditions sited in the statements. That's racist.
Is there a majority White nation with the same problems? If not, why not?
"The majority briefly replies that those remarks are not “overtly racial,” but it is hard to know what that means. Haitians are Black. (Norwegians and Swedes not so much.)"
Oh! That's a good way of remembering which country is which, because they're completely indistinguishable otherwise
"This action is illegal because it's fueled by racism!"
"What racism?"
"He called Haiti a shithole country."
"Why do they need temporary protected status?"
"Duh. Without it, they'd be sent back to their shithole country!"
"I don't think the D's will expand the Court and pack the Court in 2028."
Why not? Is it because of their demonstrated restraint when in pursuit of power? As Carville will tell you, Democrats have changed.
As for the minority's opinion regarding offensive language; if a President makes negative remarks about a country, say Iran (which as Persians has a better claim to a "race" than Haitians), does that mean the President must provide the citizens indefinite entry into our country? Just how would such a law work with the argument they are providing? When Reagan made comments about the Soviet Union, did it mean the border must be then open to any Soviet that wanted to enter the US?
Honestly, the minority opinion seems to be very political rather than judicial. We don't like Trump's statements and therefore rule against him without providing a consistent construct of the law other than you rule against any President that makes statements you don't like. Does that work on Mayors?
...there were reports of Haitians eating dogs and cats in Ohio. Did Kagan herself investigate or did she just accept that WaPo's Pinocchios were accurate and run with that?
Go look at some videos of living Democrats talking about immigration just a few years ago in the same terms as Trump does. Then tell me you can trust them enough to elect them to office.
Assuming Kagan has never seen Marcus Samuelsson on television.
On first comment I made: "US force immediate"... should be "US face immediate", as is they must leave once uttering offensive statements against the US. Again, the Administration is clear on this but are the minority justices consistent, because I don't think they are.
Is any evidence provided that said countries are not shitholes?
I mean, that needs to be established first, right?
bagoh20 said...
Go look at some videos of living Democrats talking about immigration just a few years ago
Just watch if any Jews started to ask for asylum in the US to escape Isreal today. It is not hard to imagine such claiming that because the government keeps provoking their neighbors then it is no longer safe in their country and they wish to come to the US. There is even a better claim for them that seeking asylum in a neighboring country is not a better option than staying where they are.
"Despite the challenges facing the nation, Haiti became the country's first team to qualify for the World Cup since 1974. Team officials noted the squad has been forced to play its home matches outside Haiti because of ongoing instability in the country."
So the Three Sisty Uglers don’t agree that Haiti is a “shithole country?” And are the lefties speaking a different language now? “Arrives in the United States” doesn’t mean arrives IN the United States? “Temporary” isn’t temporary if the President thinks the country is a shithole?
The minority's opinion suggests to me that they would see what happened in the UK, with mostly Pakistani men raping young women, and like the UK government, then claim that no action could be taken against these men, because it would be racial in nature.
The left demand as many illegal immigrants as possible.
The right want strong legal immigration structure.
I want ZERO immigration until we sort everything out.
F Soros.
Remember Captain Barbecue. Many Haitians claimed that he was killing his opponents and eating them. Were such Haitians racist to make such allegations?.......I guess you shouldn't say shithole out loud, but there are a lot of unappealing things about Haiti and some--okay not all--of the people that live there. You can make a strong case that the people who seek asylum will improve their lives if they come here, but not so much of a case for improving the lives of native born Americans. Ditto with the Syrians--maybe with an exception for the Syrian Christians.......It isn't strictly necessary for immigrants to love America, but why did we invite so many who actively hate America.
What was the evidence that the policy was racially biased against Syrians?
Haiti is objectively a shithole country. It shares an island with another country, the Dominican Republic. The two countries have virtually the same number of people - 11.9 million in Haiti, 11.5 million in the DR. Yet somehow the DR has a GDP of about $136 billion ($12,400 per capita) while Haiti stands at $39 billion, or slightly more than $3k per capita. It is also crime ridden. One could easily refer to Haiti as a shithole country on purely objective, non-racial grounds.
So now racism is so important that all you have to do is impute it to the POTUS and presto chango all his actions become invalid. How in the hell can you run a country with that sort of nonsense. Any judge can just "mind-read" the POTUS and rule how she wants.
Haiti is a shit show h/t Obama, with burdens h/t Obama of State, where immigration reform is a human rite, and DEIsm is institutional.
All this immigration/refugee bullshit occurs because the Republicans in Congress refuse to rewrite the immigration laws and make it crystal clear that the POTUS has the right to stop people from coming in, and can deport those here illegally.
Thats why Thune and Mitch the Bitch love the filibuster. It allows them to go to their voters and claim they're against illegal immigration. But then do nothing in Congress. "We'd love to stop it, but darn it, we just don't have 60 votes. Gosh its so sad".
They actually shut down the Government in Jan 2017, because the R Senators didn't want to fund a border wall that they were all had voted for. Just another con job.
But if Republicans keep re-nominating these traitors and liars nothing will change.
So reading the opinion, i find the statue that was used by Trump administration bars Judicial Reivew.
Per Thomas:
"First, the statute makes Congress’s intent to preclude judicial review clear. The canon of constitutional avoidance
applies only if the statute is ambiguous. Coney Island Auto
Parts Unlimited, Inc. v. Burton Tr. for Vista-Pro Automotive, LLC, 607 U. S. 155, 161 (2026). Congress’s language—
“no judicial review”—is not ambiguous. See ante, at 12–13.
There is no indication in the text that reviewability may
turn on the source of law for the underlying claim."
Of course, the minority just blow right by that. blah blah that doesnt mean what it says.
Of course that brings up the question What if Congress says "No judicial review" and the court just ignores it? Of course, Congress - under our current crazy system - cant bar judicial review of a law claimed to be unconstitutional. But it can bar it for every other reason.
“And: Haiti is a “shithole country,” which is “filthy, dirty, [and] disgusting.”
If that’s not true why do they need protection?
Kagan is the only SCOTUS liberal (of the three) with an above average IQ. Unfortunately, she finds it difficult to use her intelligence when issues offend her political sensitivities.
They hired colombisn mercenaries to kill their president
My dachshund is relieved. Being sausage-shaped is dangerous when They're Eating the Dogs . . .
In that chimp circus shes learmed hand
The DEI affirmative action SCOTUS doesn’t know what a woman is or what temporary means.
Haitians are Black. (Norwegians and Swedes not so much.)
For now. Check back on Norway and Sweden in a few years.
“Leland said...
Even if I agreed with Kagan those statements are offensive, she fails to provide evidence they are racial.”
Given that Haiti is, objectively, a shithole country, this is additional evidence that evil dwarf Kagan has lost the last of her marbles and needs to retire (or be retired) immediately. She needs to take the two affirmative action/DEI hires her.
Yea, that's why she voted that way. It has nothing to do with keeping a permanent democrat constituency.
For the "Progressives", discrimination against a race is not allowed (unless they're white), but discrimination in favor of a race is allowed (unless they're white). But when they aren't actually in the process of discriminating in favor of POC, race is merely an antiquated and meaningless social construct. Like what's between your legs.
Syria is now out of civil war and ruled by a moderate.
Haiti is "great" according to US liberal celebrities. Thus it must be totally fine for citizens of Haiti to return to their homeland.
I find it funny that our Supreme Court justices can announce HAITIANS ARE BLACK.
oh?
Has she never heard of white haitians? They exist. There are even Haitians with Polish ancestry.
Racist liberals are unaware of the deep, diverse history of Haiti and just announce Untruths.
5% of Haiti is mixed or white.
I guess Supreme Court justices don't notice racial minorities.
A minority of Haitians are PoWs under Critical Diversity Theory.
“Has she never heard of white haitians? They exist. There are even Haitians with Polish ancestry.”
1804 Haiti massacre
Part of the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution
General Jean-Jacques Dessalines holding a white woman's severed head
Location First Empire of Haiti
Date February 1804 – 22 April 1804
Target White Haitians (Mainly French people)
Attack type Genocide[1]
Deaths 3,000–7,000
Perpetrators Army of Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Motive Anti-French sentiment
Revenge for slavery
The 1804 Haiti massacre was a genocide carried out by Afro-Haitian soldiers, mostly former slaves, under orders from Jean-Jacques Dessalines[1][2][3][4] against much of the remaining European population in Haiti, which mainly included French people.[5][6] The Haitian Revolution defeated the French army in November 1803 and the Haitian Declaration of Independence happened on 1 January 1804.[7] From February 1804[8] until 22 April 1804, between 3,000 and 7,000 people were killed.[8]
The massacre excluded surviving Polish Legionnaires, who had defected from the French legion to become allied with the enslaved Africans, as well as the Germans who did not take part in the slave trade, and some other select whites. They were instead granted full citizenship under the constitution, even though Dessalines had declared that all Haitians would be considered "black".“
Still, I’d guess it’s kinda uncomfortable being a paleface in Haiti. Microaggressions everywhere.
Isn't this another case of lower courts not allowing a president to undo what an earlier president did, because Trump? What we've seen over and over since 2017. The details & motivations shouldn't matter one bit if the law give POTUS the authority to act.
Without the "success" of the Haitian revolution, Napoleon wouldn't have sold us Louisiana. He lose 30-50k French soldiers failing to restore rule in 1802-3.
Assisted living facilities are about to lose a large number of workers. This will affect people of all political stripes — especially anyone whose parents have caregivers in a senior home.
…which is the greater offense from Kagan- squandering the opportunity to write a sentient dissent or squandering that opportunity just to get Trump’s language she doesn’t like in the record?
This is a big fucking deal…
Honestly, the minority opinion seems to be very political rather than judicial.
My thoughts exactly. They know they can't win on the merits of the case, so they chum the waters with bullshit language to feed their base.
And they don't give a damn if it further ruins the reputation of SCOTUS.
They're nothing more than The Squad in black robes.
If there was successful Revolution in Haiti how did France extract billions in reparations for slave owners?
Something is off.
Trump's crudeness (indeed, the same crudeness) was featured in Trump v. Hawaii (2018), which dealt with the so-called Muslim ban. The Trump Admin won that case too.
There's one very important aspect of this case that isn't coming through in the discussion: this decision doesn't end the case. As Alito's opinion makes clear when it gets to the 'equal protection' claim on which the DC District Court relied in granting a stay in the Haiti case, the Supreme Court is addressing an interim ruling (i.e., a preliminary stay), not a final judgment. Different standards apply at that stage (that's the point of Alito's explanation about why the Court didn't have to resolve the jurisdictional issue but instead could reverse by addressing the likelihood of success issue on the merits). The District Court is still able to impose the same stay as part of a final adjudication on the merits, if it finds that racial animus was a "significant motivating factor" (that's the Arlington Heights standard which Alito assumed arguendo is applicable) for the decision to end TPS for Haiti. In the case from Boston staying TPS for Syrians, the District Court had expressly rejected the equal protection claim, and so it is unlikely to be found any the more meritorious on final judgment.
An appeal from a final judgment would require an appellate court to accept the District Court's factual findings unless they were clearly erroneous, a standard which Alito's opinion doesn't mention in evaluating plaintiffs' likelihood of success on the merits at this preliminary stage. District Judge Ana Reyes seems to be a pretty determined jurist and my guess is that she will use any means at her disposal to rule against the Trump Admin on this TPS issue. So, stay tuned.
Thank you Richard Dolan. That is helpful.
"Trump's crudeness" is quite often his willingness to say out loud and in public what people are thinking to themselves.
Personally, I think it can be clarifying but I do understand it makes some people lose their minds.
If somebody told you 'hey, there's a Haitian here to see you', there's a better-than 95% chance that the person is black. The other 5% of Haitians are mixed race, so in America, many of them would probably pass for black, being mulattos. It's not racist to say that, and it's not racist to structure your thinking based on those facts. These are the demographics of Haiti.
"It's not racist to say that..."
The people who say it is racist to say that also say it's racist to allow white South Africans into the country.
I agree with the critics that say Haiti is a humanitarian nightmare. It is. It has been since the country was founded as Haiti. And will be as long as it it is filled with Haitians. Letting the US act a relief valve for Haiti imports Haiti's problems, it doesn't solve them.
The Dominican Republic, sharing a border with Haiti, has solved their Haitian problem. A big beautiful wall between the two countries keeping the Haitians out. What's the difference between the two? Haiti was taken over by the French from Spain. So when the French lecture us on, well, anything- ignore them. Haiti is just one of the many reasons to despise France.
But, anyhow, Haiti will be a humanitarian disaster as long as it's run by and filled with Haitians. Outside intervention would have to last for at least two generations to change things there. No one wants to take that on.
Why doesn’t the Times know that “crackdown” is a noun and “crack down” is a verb? What kinds of retards are they hiring?
Haiti, like every black country, is a shithole. It’s racist to point that out.
Black countries are always and everywhere A Humanitarian Crisis.
We already let in all the educated blacks from Haiti from 1965 to 1975. They don’t want the feral Haitians here either.
Kagan sounds like the view or BS Now. bitching about Trump .
that is not a proper legal argument
Excellent comment Richard Dolan. Good point that this was only an interim ruling, not the final word in the case. Still, Alito’s “unlikely to succeed” discussion is a pretty strong signal to the lower court. Unless plaintiffs develop new evidence tying the Haiti TPS decision even more directly to racial animus, simply reissuing the same stay on the same record seems likely to invite another reversal, imo.
Personal animus? Is it Diversity (e.g. racism), Equivocation, and Inclusion (DEI)?
If Haiti is too dangerous to return to, does that mean that we are obligated to accept every single resident of Haiti into the US? The logic seems clear.
I didn't realize that the tone of the POTUS' language was mentioned somewhere in the Constitution.
Google "Port-au-Prince images."
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