from the ACLU, this is at Liberty, a podcast about the civil rights and civil liberties

questions of our time. I'm Kendall Seasmeyer, the producer of this podcast and your host for this

episode. Today, we continue our special series breaking down important Supreme Court decisions.

The Supreme Court decided in a seven to two decision to deny certain asylum seekers their right to have their day in court.

This decision follows the Trump administration's relentless attacks against asylum seekers, including closing the border and other ports of

entry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March, legal-a-lerned, the ACLU's deputy director of the Immigrants Rights Project argued

the case of Department of Homeland Security versus Therossingham, defending the rights

of Vigoukimar Therasingham, an asylum seeker from Sri Lanka who fled

ethnic persecution. Loyal at Liberty listeners will remember Lee joining us just months ago to preview

this case. Today, he joins us again to break down the decision. Thanks so much for joining us,

Lee. Thanks for having me. So there's a lot to break down in

this case, including how it relates to the broader context of the administration's attack on asylum.

But first, you argued this case in front of the Supreme Court, and this is unfortunately not

the outcome that we were looking for. So I'm wondering, how are you taking all of this in?

Yeah. Well, it's only been a few hours and still digesting it, but feeling very bad for our client and for other asylum seekers

who may be affected by this. It's always tough to lose a Supreme Court case, but it's

particularly tough when people's lives are at stake. And so right now we're trying to figure out

exactly what the opinion means, how broad it is, and what other steps we can take to keep our

clients in the country. But there's no question

that this is highly disappointing. Absolutely. So I want to understand from the highest level,

what was the question before the court in this case? Right. So the question had a lot of technicalities,

...