The U.S. Supreme Court case of Gene McNary, Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, et al. v. Haitian Refugee Center, Inc., et al., 1990 revolved around the issue of whether a group of undocumented immigrants from Haiti could challenge their deportation in court under the Fifth Amendment's due process clause or if they were protected by international law prohibiting refoulement (the return to a country where one may face persecution). The government argued that these individuals had no legal right to be in the United States and therefore did not have any constitutional rights regarding their removal proceedings. On the other hand, advocates for the refugees contended that they should be given an opportunity to present evidence showing why they feared returning home before being deported. In its decision, however, the Supreme Court sided with immigration officials stating that aliens who are captured at sea while trying to enter America illegally do not have constitutional rights concerning exclusion procedures because such people were never technically on American soil; hence cannot claim protection under U.S laws.

In the dissenting opinion for Gene McNary, Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, et al. v. Haitian Refugee Center, Inc., et al., Justice Blackmun argued that the majority's decision was a departure from established principles of international law and American tradition regarding refugees' rights. He contended that the court had failed to consider adequately whether interdiction practices violated non-refoulement obligations under Article 33 of the United Nations Convention Relating to Status of Refugees - which prohibits returning refugees in any manner whatsoever to territories where their lives or freedom would be threatened on account of race, religion, nationality or membership in a particular social group or political opinion. Furthermore, he criticized how immigration officials were given broad discretion without clear guidelines about when repatriation is appropriate; this could lead to arbitrary decisions with potentially life-threatening consequences for those seeking asylum.