President Donald Trump scored a huge win in his efforts to deport illegal migrants living in the United States illegally with a major Supreme Court ruling on Monday.
The country’s highest court, in an unsigned 5 – 4 ruling, overturned a lower court’s decision barring the Trump administration from invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.
As a result, Obama-appointed US Judge James Boasberg’s March 15 order that had temporarily blocked the deportations under Trump’s invocation of the 18th century law has been lifted.
At the same time, however, the court’s majority placed limits on how deportations may occur – emphasizing that judicial review is required.
It said 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 and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.’
Those who dissented with the court’s decision were conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the court’s three liberal justices.
President Donald Trump scored a huge win in his efforts to deport illegal migrants living in the United States illegally, as the Supreme Court allowed him to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members
Judge James Boasberg, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, temporarily blocked the deportations
Trump had invoked the Alien Enemies Act on March 15 to swiftly deport the alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang, attempting to speed up removals with a law best known for its use to intern Japanese, Italian and German immigrants during World War Two.
He had claimed that members of the gang were ‘conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States’ with the goal of destabilizing the nation.
But Boasberg ruled last month that the Alien Enemies Act ‘does not provide a basis for the president’s proclamation given that the terms invasion, predatory incursion really relate to hostile acts perpetrated by any nation and commensurate to war.’
The liberal judge also said that he needed to issue his order immediately because the government already was flying migrants it claimed were newly deportable under Trump’s proclamation to be incarcerated in El Salvador and Honduras.
The Trump administration, though, has claimed that the flights had already left US airspace by the time Boasberg issued a written order and were therefore not required to return.
Lawyers with the Justice Department also dismissed the weight of Boasberg’s spoken order calling for any planes carrying deportees to be turned around.
In court documents urging the Supreme Court to overturn Boasberg’s order, the Trump administration also argued that Boasberg’s temporary ban encroached on presidential authority to make national security decisions.
It said the judge had ‘rebuffed’ Trump’s immigration agenda, including the president’s ability ‘to protect the Nation against foreign terrorist organizations and risk debilitating effects for delicate foreign negotiations,’ Fox News reports.
The Alien Enemies Act authorizes the president to deport, detain or place restrictions on individuals whose primary allegiance is to a foreign power and who might pose a national security risk in wartime
In Monday’s decision, the court’s majority emphasized that it was deciding that any challenges to deportation under Alien Enemies Act must be brought in the federal court district where the migrants are detained, meaning the proper venue was in Texas, not the District of Columbia.
The ruling said the court was not resolving the validity of the administration’s reliance on that law to carry out the deportations.
The plaintiffs in the case ‘challenge the government’s interpretation of the Act and assert that they do not fall within the category of removable alien enemies. But we do not reach those arguments.’
In a legal challenge handled by the American Civil Liberties Union, a group of Venezuelan men in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities on the same day sued on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated, seeking to block the deportations.
They argued, among other things, that Trump’s order exceeded his powers because the Alien Enemies Act authorizes removals only when war has been declared or the United States has been invaded.
The Alien Enemies Act authorizes the president to deport, detain or place restrictions on individuals whose primary allegiance is to a foreign power and who might pose a national security risk in wartime.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi hailed the court’s decision as ‘a landmark victory for the rule of law’ and criticized Boasberg as an activist judge who exceeded his powers.
‘The Department of Justice will continue fighting in court to make America safe again,’ Bondi said in a social media post.
On March 18, Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment by Congress – a process that could remove him from the bench – drawing a rebuke from the U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts. Trump on social media called Boasberg, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2011 in a bipartisan 96-0 vote, a ‘Radical Left Lunatic’ and a ‘troublemaker and agitator.’
The D.C. Circuit upheld Boasberg’s order after holding a contentious hearing that involved heated language. Judge Patricia Millett told Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign that ‘Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here.’ Ensign responded, ‘We certainly dispute the Nazi analogy.’
Family members of many of the deported Venezuelan migrants deny the alleged gang ties. Lawyers for one of the deportees, a Venezuelan professional soccer player and youth coach, said U.S. officials had wrongly labeled him a gang member based on a tattoo of a crown meant to honor his favorite team, Real Madrid.
