Roberts rejects Senate Democrats' request to discuss Supreme Court ethics and Alito flag controversy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday declined an invitation to meet with Democratic senators to talk about Supreme Court ethics and the controversy over flags that flew outside homes owned by Justice Samuel Alito.

Roberts' response came in a letter to the senators a day after Alito separately wrote them and House members to reject their demands that he recuse himself from major Supreme Court cases involving former President Donald Trump and the Jan. 6 rioters because of the flags, which are like those carried by rioters at the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a member of the Judiciary panel, had written Roberts a week ago to ask for the meeting and that Roberts take steps to ensure that Alito recuses himself from any cases before the court concerning the Jan. 6 attack or the Republican former president's attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

“I must respectfully decline your request for a meeting,” Roberts wrote.

Justices decide for themselves when to step aside from cases, Roberts noted. Alito said he concluded nothing about the flags, both of which he said were flown by his wife outside their homes in Virginia and New Jersey, required his recusal.

Last year, Roberts declined to testify at a Judiciary Committee hearing on Supreme Court ethics, and he made mention of that Thursday in saying that chief justices only rarely have met with lawmakers.

“Moreover, the format proposed — a meeting with leaders only of one party who have expressed an interest in matters currently pending before the court — simply underscores that participating in such a meeting would be inadvisable,” he wrote.

Both Alito and an another conservative justice, Clarence Thomas, have rejected calls to recuse themselves from cases related to the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Thomas' wife, Ginni, supported efforts to overturn the election results.

Public trust in the Supreme Court is at its lowest point in at least 50 years.

The justices are considering two major cases related to the Capitol attack, including charges faced by the rioters and whether Trump has immunity from prosecution on election interference charges.

The New York Times reported that an inverted American flag was seen at Alito’s home in Alexandria, Virginia, less than two weeks after the attack on the Capitol. The paper also reported that an “Appeal to Heaven” flag was flown outside of the justice’s beach home in New Jersey last summer. Both flags were carried by rioters who violently stormed the Capitol in January 2021 echoing Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

Alito has said the inverted American flag was flown by his wife amid a dispute with neighbors and he had no part in it. He said she also flew the “Appeal to Heaven” flag but was unaware of its ties to the Capitol rioters.

Judicial ethics codes focus on the need for judges to be independent, avoiding political statements or opinions on matters they could be called on to decide. The Supreme Court had long gone without its own code of ethics, but it adopted one in November 2023 in the face of sustained criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices.

The code lacks a means of enforcement, though, and the Judiciary panel approved legislation last year that would set stricter standards. But Republicans have been staunchly opposed to any efforts to tell the court what to do.

Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

FILE - Associate Justice Samuel Alito joins other members of the Supreme Court as they pose for a new group portrait, Oct. 7, 2022, at the Supreme Court building in Washington. Alito rejects calls to step aside from Supreme Court cases on Trump and Jan. 6. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr., left, and his wife Martha-Ann Alito, pay their respects at the casket of Reverend Billy Graham at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, Feb. 28, 2018. Alito rejects calls to step aside from Supreme Court cases on Trump and Jan. 6. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

FILE - Supreme Court is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Oct. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts joins other members of the Supreme Court as they pose for a new group portrait, at the Supreme Court building in Washington, Oct. 7, 2022. Roberts has declined an invitation to meet with Democratic senators to talk about Supreme Court ethics and the controversy over flags that flew outside homes owned by Justice Samuel Alito. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts speaks at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, in Lincoln, Neb., Sept. 19, 2014. Roberts has declined an invitation to meet with Democratic senators to talk about Supreme Court ethics and the controversy over flags that flew outside homes owned by Justice Samuel Alito. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Officials in Minnesota are seeking answers in the case of a University of Minnesota graduate student who’s being detained by U.S. immigration authorities for unknown reasons.

University leadership said Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained the student Thursday at an off-campus residence. Officials said the school was not given advance notice about the detention and did not share information with federal authorities. The student’s name and nationality have not been released.

As the case remained largely a mystery, state and local leaders called on federal authorities to explain their actions.

“My office and I are doing all we can to get information about this concerning case,” Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar said in a post on the social media site X. “We’re in contact with the University and understand they had no prior warning or information that led to this detainment.”

She said that international students are “a major part of the fabric of life in the school and our community.”

The detained student is enrolled in business school at the university’s Twin Cities campus. University officials said the school is providing the student with legal aid and other support services.

What prompted the detention is still unknown. ICE officials have not responded to an Associated Press email requesting comment.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said on X that he is in touch with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“The University of Minnesota is an international destination for education and research,” Walz wrote. “We have any number of students studying here with visas, and we need answers.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey also called the case “deeply troubling.”

“Educational environments must be places where all students can focus on learning and growing without fear,” he wrote on X.

Officials promised to release more information about the case once they have updates.

U.S. immigration authorities have been targeting people with ties to American colleges and universities as President Donald Trump seeks to crackdown on immigrants. Most of the detainees have shown support for Palestinian causes.

The Trump administration has cited a seldom-invoked statute authorizing the secretary of state to revoke visas of noncitizens who could be considered a threat to foreign policy interests. More than half a dozen people are known to have been taken into custody or deported in recent weeks.

In Minneapolis, the university’s graduate labor union organized a protest Saturday outside the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office downtown, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. Dozens of people joined the rally to stand in solidarity with international students facing uncertain futures under the new Trump administration.

“International students are huge assets to the University of Minnesota,” U.S. Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota said in a Facebook post. “They move thousands of miles away from their families and support systems to learn from the best and the brightest. I can’t imagine how terrified they are after learning ICE has detained one of their classmates.”

A person walks on campus at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis on April 21, 2020. (Glenn Stubbe/Star Tribune via AP, File)