Mullin v. Doe: Whitewashing Anti-Blackness

Mullin v. Doe is notable for the logical contortions that the Court performed to deny what was right in front of its face. It also raises stark questions about this Court’s ability to detect and condemn anti-Black racism. President Trump’s stigmatizing statements about Haitian immigrants should have easily sufficed to show racial animus when the administration terminated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) status for Haitian immigrants. This brief essay describes and dissects the various arguments that Justice Alito’s majority opinion unfurled to avoid that conclusion. It then concludes by linking the opinion to a broader cultural phenomenon of “performative politics,” and shows that it extends to the right wing. The majority worked hard to launder the Trump administration’s virulent racism. The Court’s initial method was to bury the comments—to refuse to print them in the U.S. reports. As Justice Kagan pointed out in dissent, Justice Alito declined to recount the actual statements by President Trump and former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that gave rise to the respondents’ claim of racial animus. This is extremely unusual and suspect. How can a court analyze statements if it can’t bear to face them?