How does impeached President Donald Trump’s illegitimate nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court rank when it comes to rulings on immigration? Well, the fact that Amy Coney Barrett appeared to get a thumbs-up from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), an anti-immigrant hate group founded by dead white nationalist and eugenicist John Tanton, is incredibly worrying, to say the least.
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Vox’s Nicole Narea reports that in her three-plus years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Amy Coney Barrett has mostly decided against immigrants, siding with the Trump administration on its discriminatory “public charge” rule punishing working families, and in another case deciding against a U.S. citizen who sued after his wife was denied permanent residency under disturbing circumstances on the part of the federal government.
“In January 2019, Barrett refused to reconsider a case brought by a naturalized US citizen, Moshin Yafai, whose wife, Zahoor Ahmed, a citizen of Yemen, was twice denied a green card,” Narea reported. “The consular officer had denied Ahmed’s green card on the grounds that she allegedly tried to smuggle her two children across the border, even though Ahmed and her husband had provided documentation to the embassy that their children had died in a drowning accident.”
That case appeared to strike a particular chord with CIS. “One of the eugenicist John Tanton’s favorite think tanks is praising Trump’s Supreme Court nominee thanks to her decisions denying certain brown people access to visas,” tweeted investigative journalist Jean Guerrero, who has previously detailed the group’s sordid association with White House aide and noted white supremacist Stephen Miller.
Narea writes that in another anti-immigrant decision by Barrett, she waved away a case brought forward by an asylum-seeker who sought protection in the U.S. after he witnessed gang members murder a friend in El Salvador. Gerson Alvarenga-Flores’ case, however, encountered an obstacle due to an inconsistency that could have been due to a language issue. “He claimed that he had been attacked by gang members while in a taxi and, on another occasion, said he was approached by them on a bus,” Narea reported.
“But the judge nevertheless concluded that his account of being targeted by gangs wasn’t credible,” she continued, “without even considering whether he would have deserved humanitarian protection.” Barrett sided with the immigration judge, also pointing to the discrepancy.
In one of the last Supreme Court decisions of her life, Bader Ginsburg ruled against the Trump administration’s unlawful move ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Should the impeached president get his Supreme Court nominee installed and then manage to remain in office next year, he’ll again move to end DACA and deport hundreds of thousands of young immigrants—and this time will likely have the hyper-conservative court he needs to ensure a ruling in his favor.
“Confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court would be a disaster for immigrant communities across this country,” tweeted Daniel Altschuler, managing director of Make the Road Action. “Americans need Supreme Court Justices who will defend the Constitutional rights of every American and deliver equal justice for all under the law,” tweeted Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith. “Amy Coney Barrett’s record makes it clear she will not.”