Gorsuch Tags COVID Response As Biggest Blow To Civil Liberties

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch made it clear where he stands on the pandemic-era emergency response. He called it "the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country," Sarah Al-Arshani reported for Business Insider.

Photo Insert: SC Justice Gorusch's statement came in response to a Republican-led effort to extend Title 42, a restrictive immigrant policy.

His statement came in response to a Republican-led effort to extend Title 42, a restrictive immigrant policy.

As COVID-19 spread across the US in 2020, among the wide-ranging efforts to insulate the country from the pandemic was Title 42, a restrictive immigration policy allowing the rapid expulsion of asylum seekers and other migrants.

The measure — initially implemented by the Trump administration and expanded under President Joe Biden — expired this month. The US Supreme Court last week rejected a push by Republican-led states to keep it in place.

In an eight-page response to the case, Gorsuch said "executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale.

Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private."

In January 2022, he was the only Justice who refused to wear a mask, forcing Justice Sonia Sotomayor to participate in oral arguments virtually.

Sotomayor has diabetes and is at a higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19. In Thursday's statement, Gorsuch warned that the "concentration of power in the hands of so few" won't lead to "sound government."

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