In a close 5:4 decision (Amy Coney Barrett voted with the other three women justices) the US Supreme Court ruled Monday to vacate (overturn) a Judge’s temporary restraining order on deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.
This was an emergency
case, part of a shadow docket, where a question requires an immediate response
with no time for careful deliberations.
What it means is that for now the Trump regime can continue to use the Alien Enemies act to deport alleged gang members to Venezuela.
The same day Chief Justice Roberts, on his own, temporarily blocked the order made last Friday by Judge Xinix to have Kilmar Abrego Garcia – who the Trump administration admits was deported in error – returned by midnight. The block is by an "administrative stay" meant to give the court time to consider the case.
The court did not address if the Act is being used properly – that question, they wrote, will have to be decided in a Texas court.
The Supreme Court ruling
did place limits on the use of the Act, specifically that notice and due process
is required before deportation. All nine justices agreed that 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 ad in such a manner as will allow them to
actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.
While the court’s insistence
on notice and due process is welcome, there is little assurance that the Trump
regime will follow this part of the ruling. They will just see it as a
justification that what they did and are doing is just fine. This was Trump’s
response
“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. A GREAT
DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA.”
It should go without
saying that the President, whoever that may be, could still secure America’s
borders while following the law and ensuring that the people they are deporting
are in fact criminals.
The Supreme Court should
have halted all deportations until the question of the use of the Alien Enemies
Act had been established, especially when the Trump administration admits that
once deported they have no way to bring anyone back for trial. Furthermore it
should have insisted on bringing back all of the deported for trial, not just
the one man that the administration admitted was in error. By the way the
lawyer who made that admission has been fired. It appears four of the justices
agree with my position.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor
and Ketanji Brown Jackson each wrote a dissent. Here are some excerpts from
Sotomayor:
“The implication of the Government’s position
is that not only noncitizens but also United States citizens could be taken off
the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no
opportunity for redress if judicial review is denied unlawfully before removal.
History is no stranger to such lawless regimes, but this Nation’s system of
laws is designed to prevent, not enable, their rise.”
“The Government’s conduct in this litigation
poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law. That a majority of this Court
now rewards the Government for its behavior with discretionary equitable relief
is indefensible. We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than
this.”
Jackson also lamented
the Court’s hasty decision.
“The President of the United States
has invoked a centuries-old wartime statute to whisk people away to a
notoriously brutal, foreign-run prison. For lovers of liberty, this should be
quite concerning. Surely, the question whether such Government action is
consistent with our Constitution and law warrants considerable thought and
attention from the judiciary. That was why the District Court issued a
temporary restraining order to prevent immediate harm to the targeted individuals
while the court considered the lawfulness of the Government’s conduct. But this
court now sees fit to intervene, hastily dashing off a four-paragraph per
curiam opinion discarding the District Court’s order based solely on a new legal
pronouncement that, one might have
thought, would require significant deliberation.
We are just as wrong now as we have
been in the past, with similarly devastating consequences. It just seems we are
now less willing to face it.”
Update April 9
Guardian article discusses ruling as a win for Trump and for immigrants
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/supreme-court-trump-deportations
Sources
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/07/us-supreme-court-deportations
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/us/politics/supreme-court-trump-venezuelan-deportations.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/us/politics/supreme-court-wrongly-deported.html
Laws and the Constitution just get in Trump's way
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