Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia were seated together on Oct. 8, 2010, during the Supreme Court’s formal portrait.
Conservatives and Republicans have used a recent nationwide baby formula shortage to attack the administration of President Joe Biden for providing formula to the infants of incarcerated immigrants along the U.S. Border. What’s ironic is that conservative jurist Antonin Scalia and a 7-2 bloc of Supreme Court conservatives signed an opinion in 1993 that indicated the government needed to provide “decent and humane” facilities — including appropriate nourishment — for detainees.
The newfound critics of the provision of formula to infants at the border include Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), and Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas), among others. Some of the widely disseminated pictures which purported to show formula have been subsequently identified as powdered milk.
When asked about why the Biden Administration was providing formula to migrants, outgoing White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki pointed to a settlement connected to Reno v. Flores, a 1993 U.S. Supreme Court case. Psaki’s colloquy during Friday’s press briefing went like this:
Q: Okay. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik — and she tweeted something I will read to you — but several other Republican politicians have also gone along this line. She says, “Joe Biden continues to put America last by shipping pallets of baby formula to the southern border as American families face empty shelves.” She says, “This is unacceptable.” Do you have a response to that?
MS. PSAKI: Well, we do like facts here, so let me just give you a little sense of the facts on this one. There’s something called…
