More on Alito
Joe Biden Puts Samuel Alito in a Jam
Story by Sean O'Driscoll
President
Joe Biden's executive order on asylum will put Justice
Samuel Alito's strict interpretation of legislation to the test, a former prosecutor has said.
On her
Cafe Insider podcast, Joyce Vance, who served as the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017, discussed the
Supreme Court's June 14
decision in Garland v. Cargill to strike down a
Donald Trump–era ban on bump stocks, a device that essentially converts rifles into machine guns.
The ban was issued after a 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, during which a gunman used bump stocks to fire more than 1,000 rounds into a music festival audience in 11 minutes. Sixty people were killed, and hundreds more were injured.
In his opinion, Alito wrote that executive orders could not take the place of existing legislation. Trump's 2018 executive order essentially placed a new interpretation on existing legislation, something Alito said was unconstitutional.
President Biden is
now seeking to use an executive order to place a cap on the number of asylum-seekers that can pass through the southern border.
Under Biden's order, once the number of weekly crossings by asylum-seekers passes 2,500, those applying for asylum must do so at the border rather than through the normal method of applying in U.S courts.
Alito wrote in his opinion: "The horrible shooting spree in Las Vegas in 2017 did not change the statutory text or its meaning. That event demonstrated that a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock can have the same lethal effect as a machinegun, and it thus strengthened the case for amending [federal law]. But an event that highlights the need to amend a law does not itself change the law's meaning."
Trump, the presumptive 2024
Republican presidential nominee, and his party have made limiting immigration a central campaign issue. Alito, who was nominated to the Supreme Court in 2005 by Republican President
George W. Bush, has faced criticism recently after reports said a
pro-Trump flag flew outside his house on January 17, 2021, days before Biden's inauguration.
On her podcast, Vance said Tuesday that Biden's asylum executive order, if challenged to the Supreme Court, would place Alito in a difficult situation.
"You have to wonder, What will Justice Alito do? You know, Justice Alito who just said a tragedy like Las Vegas can't ....
CONTINUED
