The Supreme Court on Friday dealt President Trump a surprise setback by refusing to allow the administration to ban asylum for people who cross the border illegally — with Ruth Bader Ginsburg voting from her hospital bed.
In a 5-4 vote, the justices rebuffed the administration’s bid to put on hold a California-based federal judge’s order preventing it from making anyone crossing the US-Mexican border outside of an official entry point ineligible for asylum.
Ginsburg, recovering from surgery to remove cancerous nodules on a lung, voted from her hospital bed in New York with the majority, NBC reported.
Trump’s two high court appointees, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, joined conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in dissent.
San Francisco-based federal Judge Jon Tigar blocked the policy on Nov. 19.
The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals then refused the administration’s request to lift Tigar’s order.
The administration has sought ways to block thousands of Central American men, women and children traveling in caravans to escape violence and poverty in their home countries from entering the US, with Trump claiming the caravans included “Middle Easterners” and terrorists.