Neil Gorsuch Just Said the Quiet Part Out Loud

U.S Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch appeared to express concern that the nation's highest court was being used for political purposes in a dissenting opinion on Tuesday.

Gorsuch, a conservative and Trump appointee, authored a dissent to the majority's decision in a case involving Title 42 and was joined by Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal appointed by President Joe Biden.

Title 42 is a policy enacted by the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic that allows for the speedy expulsion of undocumented migrants which was due to expire last week before Chief Justice John Roberts granted a stay to that expiration sought by a group of Republican-led states.

The Court's majority ruled on Tuesday that Title 42 will remain in effect pending the Court's review of the case, which has been brought by Republican officials in 19 states. Associate Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor said they would have denied the states' application.

Gorsuch described the Court's decision as "unwise" and that the emergency on which Title 42 rested "has long since lapsed."

He acknowledged the states "contend that they face an immigration crisis at
the border and policymakers have failed to agree on adequate measures to address it."

He went on to say that "the current border crisis is not a COVID crisis."

"And courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency. We are a court of law, not policymakers of last resort," Gorsuch wrote.

Some conservatives on social media praised Gorsuch and the other justices who opposed the states' application.

"On the Title 42 decision: This is the Supreme Court doing the job of Congress & the President. That's wrong. Good on Sotomayor, Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, & Gorsuch for dissenting," tweeted former Republican Representative Joe Walsh.

John Anthony Castro, who describes himself on Twitter as a "2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Suing Trump to Disqualify Him for January 6," quoted from Gorsuch's dissent.

"Even he recognizes the Supreme Court has become too politicized; acting as unelected politicians in black robes rather than independent interpreters of the law," Castro wrote.

The Supreme Court has long been accused of being politicized but that criticism has often come from those on the political left as the Court has had a conservative majority for many years.

In May, a Quinnipiac University poll found that 63 percent of Americans believed the Court was "mainly motivated by politics," while 32 percent said it was mainly motivated by the law.

That poll was conducted before the Court overturned the landmark abortion precedent set in 1973's Roe v. Wade on June 24—a decision that prompted harsh criticism from Democrats.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said at the time that "the Republican-controlled Supreme Court has achieved the GOP's dark and extreme goal of ripping away women's right to make their own reproductive health decisions" and specifically blamed former President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

President Joe Biden said it was "was three justices named by one President Donald Trump who are the core of today's decision to upend the scales of justice and eliminate a fundamental right for women in this country" and linked the decision to the need to vote in the 2022 midterm elections.

Members of the Court have previously denied that their decisions are politically motivated. In September 2021, Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett and Stephen Breyer all rejected the idea that the Court was politicized.

Breyer, a liberal who has now retired, said the justices should not be viewed as "junior league politicians."

Newsweek has reached out to experts on the Supreme Court for comment.