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| Prisoners are packed into El Salvador's CECOT (Getty) |
The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) yesterday allowed the Trump administration to resume deportations under an obscure 1700s law in what, at first glance, appeared to be a victory for the government. But if the rule of law still prevails in America, the "victory" should be short-lived. A member of the court itself, however, suggested yesterday's ruling does nothing to restore confidence in the rule of law or justice in general. In a jointly published article at USA Today and Yahoo! News, Maureen Groppe and Zac Anderson report under the headline "Supreme Court lets Trump administration resume deportations under Alien Enemies Act":
The Trump administration can resume deportation of certain immigrants, a divided Supreme Court said on Monday in a partial victory for President Donald Trump’s hardline approach to immigration.
The court did not rule on whether Trump can use the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants it says are members of a Venezuelan crime gang. And the majority said the immigrants should get a chance to contest their deportation.
But the ruling says the immigrants brought their challenge - which was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia - in the wrong court.
"The detainees are confined in Texas, so venue is improper in the District of Columbia," the majority wrote in an unsigned opinion that lifted a judge’s order temporarily blocking deportations without hearings. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. The three liberal justices, joined in part by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, dissented.
The decision allows the Justice Department to continue using the 1798 law to deport immigrants it says are members of a Venezuelan crime gang.
In his usual deceptive, misguided fashion, President Donald Trump proclaimed victory -- an absurd statement probably designed to appeal to his most hardline, racist MAGA supporters. Said Trump:
“The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself," Trump wrote on social media. "A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!”
Unless SCOTUS plans to toss the rest of its tattered credibility overboard, the detainees surely will prevail. Under the law and the facts of the case, Trump's words were almost laughable. One member of the court, however, was not laughing -- as Groppe and Anderson make clear:
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent that the decision is "indefensible."
"The Government’s conduct in this litigation poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law," adding: "We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than this."
Despite siding with the administration, the court's majority placed limits on how deportations may occur, emphasizing that judicial review is required.
Detainees "must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act. The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs," the majority wrote.
Lee Gelernt, one of the attorneys representing the immigrants, called that an important victory.
“The critical point of this ruling is that the Supreme Court said individuals must be given due process to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act,”
Still, Steve Vladeck, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, said the decision makes it harder for immigrants to bring systemic challenges to what the Trump administration is doing.
“By relying upon an unpersuasive procedural technicality to force more individualized litigation, the Court is effectively bringing a pea-shooter to a gunfight,” Vladeck wrote on Substack.
The administration says the law gives presidents “near-blanket authority” to detain and deport any noncitizen from a country at war with the U.S. But an appeals court said the invasion had to come from a foreign government rather than a gang. The law has only been used three times before, during the War of 1812 and the two World Wars.
Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg had ruled that alleged members of Tren de Aragua, also known as TdA, deserve a hearing for a chance to deny they belong to the gang, but the administration successfully argued to the high court that the hearing shouldn’t be in Boasberg’s court.
Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote that the case provides a clear choice between whether the president or the judiciary will set policy for sensitive national security cases.
“The Constitution supplies a clear answer: the President,” Harris wrote. “The republic cannot afford a different choice.”
She said the Supreme Court should at least limit Boasberg's order to the five immigrants who brought the challenge, which the judge expanded to include anyone else who would be covered by Trump's policy. Any migrant can individually bring a claim, Harris argued, but only in Texas where they're being held, and only along narrower grounds.
Twenty-seven Republican attorneys general backed the administration, telling the Supreme Court they "finally have a welcome partner in the Presidency willing to fight for the safety and security of the American people."
But a group of conservatives and former government officials, including former federal appeals court judge Michael Luttig and former CIA Director Michael Hayden, said the issue was whether the president or the judiciary has the final say on what powers Congress gave the president under the Alien Enemies Act.
"Judicial review is intrinsic to the essential checks and balances the Framers enshrined in our constitutional system," they said in a filing led by the State Democracy Defenders Fund.
And attorneys for the immigrants who initiated the challenge called the administration's request "extraordinary."
"The President's effort to shoehorn a criminal gang into the (Alien Enemies Act), on a migration-equals-invasion theory, is completely at odds with the limited delegation of wartime authority Congress chose to give him through the statute," they wrote.
The judge's temporary pause on deportations is the only thing preventing the immigrants from being sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador, "perhaps never to be seen again," they said.
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