https://darafreshnews.com/rruu/House-Passes-Bill-8dgkldg
Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Court’s left leaning
Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Court’s left-leaning justices on Monday in a narrow immigration ruling that could signal the justices’ approach in upcoming immigration-related cases.
The 5-4 decision in Monsalvo Velazquez v. Bondi focused on the federal government’s interpretation of a 60-day “voluntary departure” window, a provision that allows certain immigrants—deemed to have “good moral character”—to leave the U.S. voluntarily within that period rather than face formal removal.
The court ruled that if a voluntary departure deadline under the 60-day timeframe falls on a weekend or a federal holiday, it must be extended to the next business day.
Writing for the majority, Gorsuch emphasized that this interpretation of the 60-day voluntary departure period is consistent with long-standing administrative practices, including those commonly applied in immigration law.
“When Congress adopts a new law against the backdrop of a ‘long-standing administrative construction,’ the Court generally presumes the new provision works in harmony with what came before,” Gorsuch said.
“Since at least the 1950s, immigration regulations have provided that when calculating deadlines, the term ‘day’ carries its specialized meaning by excluding Sundays and legal holidays (and later Saturdays) if a deadline would otherwise fall on one of those days,” Gorsuch added.
He went on to note that the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, passed by Congress, uses the same reading.
Gorsuch was joined in the majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia
Gorsuch was joined in the majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The ruling overturns the decisions of both the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Board of Immigration Appeals, which had previously rejected this interpretation in the case of Monsalvo Velázquez, a 32-year-old Colorado resident ordered for removal in 2019.
While the case largely hinges on procedural technicalities within immigration law, the narrow 5-4 decision may signal how the Court could approach upcoming high-profile immigration cases—including those involving due process protections for migrants and legal challenges to nationwide injunctions blocking President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship ban, Fox News reported.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett dissented, arguing that the Supreme Court lacked jurisdiction to rule on the matter.
Thomas stated he would have sent the case back to the lower court to address unresolved issues, while Justice Barrett criticized the nature of the appeal filed by Monsalvo. In a separate dissent, Justice Alito rejected the majority’s interpretation entirely, asserting that the 60-day voluntary departure period is clear and should include weekends, Fox noted.
“There will always be a sympathetic pro se alien who is a day or two late,” Alito said. “Unless the Court is willing to extend the statutory deadline indefinitely, it would presumably be forced to say in such cases that a day too late is just too bad.”
“For this reason, sympathy for petitioner cannot justify the Court’s decision,” he said.
The narrow ruling comes as President Trump made history after he attended oral arguments before
The narrow ruling comes as President Trump made history after he attended oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday as his administration fights to uphold his early executive order banning birthright citizenship.
He is the first president in office to attend the nation’s highest court’s oral arguments.
The top representative of the federal government before the Supreme Court is D. John Sauer, the U.S. solicitor general. After serving as Missouri’s solicitor general from 2017 to 2023, he was appointed to the position by President Trump and assumed office in April 2025.
Sauer currently oversees appellate advocacy on behalf of the United States and represents the federal government in Supreme Court cases at the Justice Department.
Soon after he left the Supreme Court, the president took to social media to deliver a pointed message.
“We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow ‘Birthright’ Citizenship! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” the president wrote on his Truth Social site.
