The Supreme Court sided with President Donald Trump on Monday night, lifting a judge’s order barring the Trump admin from deporting Venezuelan migrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
In a 5-4 decision, the court vacated temporary restraining orders issued by D.C. District Court Judge James Boasberg. The unsigned order from SCOTUS did not weigh whether Trump had the authority to deport people under the wartime law, saying instead that the case against the Trump administration was filed in the wrong venue.
The majority kept a straight face while they said that the D.C. District Court was an improper venue to challenge the actions of the sitting president’s administration. In lifting the temporary bans on deportations, they advised plaintiffs to file future complaints in Texas. In a small victory for civil rights groups, they did note that deportees’ cases are subject to judicial review.
“For all the rhetoric of the dissents, today’s order and per curiam confirm that the detainees subject to removal orders under the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal,” they wrote. “The only question is which court will resolve that challenge.”
Grasping on to that idea in her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority’s reasoning should have led them to leave the order in place while a case was heard.
“Even the majority today agrees, and the Federal Government now admits, that individuals subject to removal under the Alien Enemies Act are entitled to adequate notice and judicial review before they can be removed. That should have been the end of the matter,” she wrote in a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan, Kentanji Brown Jackson and, in part, Amy Coney Barrett.
Sotomayor worried about the “grave harm” the plaintiffs might face if they are deported to El Salvador before their case is heard, noting that the Trump administration has “attempt[ed] to subvert the judicial process throughout this litigation.”
Calling the ruling “as inexplicable as it is dangerous,” Sotomayor added that the majority was rewarding the White House for skirting the law.
“We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than this,” she wrote.
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