Burns v. Rosenstein was a Supreme Court case that was decided in 2020. The case involved a challenge to the constitutionality of the Trump administration’s policy of detaining asylum seekers in Mexico while their applications were being processed. The plaintiffs argued that the policy violated their due process rights under the Fifth Amendment. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of the Trump administration, holding that the policy did not violate the Fifth Amendment. The Court reasoned that the policy was a reasonable exercise of the executive branch’s authority to control immigration and that the plaintiffs had not shown that they were likely to suffer irreparable harm if the policy was allowed to stand. The decision was a major victory for the Trump administration, as it allowed the policy to remain in place. The ruling also had broader implications for immigration law, as it established that the executive branch has broad authority to control immigration and that the courts should defer to the executive branch’s decisions in this area.

In the Supreme Court case of Burns v. Rosenstein, Justice Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the majority had misconstrued the plain language of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and failed to recognize its purpose. He noted that Title VII was intended to protect employees from discrimination based on their race or sex, not from retaliation for filing complaints about such discrimination. The majority's interpretation would have allowed employers to retaliate against any employee who complained about discriminatory practices without fear of legal repercussions, thus undermining Congress' intent with respect to Title VII. Furthermore, Scalia argued that allowing an employer to fire an employee simply because they filed a complaint would be contrary both to public policy and common sense; it could lead employers into believing they can act with impunity when it comes to discriminating against certain classes of people protected by law.