What To Make Of The Supreme Court’s Ruling That Appears To Upend Decades Of Asylum Law

Thing is, the President always brags about appointing judges who “interpret the law exactly as written”. (As if Liberal judges always freelance, improvise and legislate, and Conservatives don’t!)

U.S. Asylum law, exactly as written, right now is this:

“Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum.

That doesn’t mean they get to stay. And the President has a lot of say over who does and who doesn’t.

But if you were interpreting law exactly as written, it’d be that. Nothing about spending time in Mexico. Nothing about first being rejected for asylum by Honduras if you and your family are from Guatemala, or vice-versa.

Now, we’re not accusing the Supreme Court of being blatantly political when it overturned a lower court ruling last week compelling Trump to hold off on new rules effectively…