The Rapist’s Mishandling of COVID

Because there is no majority opinion, there is no way of knowing which, if any, of the legal arguments advanced by the Trump administration on appeal the Court actually found convincing. What we do know, from Sotomayor’s dissent and from the lower court opinions that the conservative justices tossed aside, is that people are going to get hurt.

One plaintiff, for example, an American citizen and Latino man named Jason Gavidia, was accosted by masked men with guns as he was working on his car in a tow yard. The agents demanded to know if he was a citizen, and Gavidia told them at least three times that he was. Then the agents asked him what hospital he was born in. When he didn’t immediately remember, Sotomayor recounts in her dissent, “the agents racked a rifle, took Gavidia’s phone, pushed him up against the metal gated fence, put his hands behind his back, and twisted his arm.” The agents only released Gavidia after he handed over his ID card.