On Monday evening (April 7), the Supreme Court sided with President Donald Trump, granting an emergency request by the administration and overturning a lower court ruling, which had stopped deportation flights conducted under the Alien Enemies Act. The ruling came after a 5-4 decision, which saw Justice Amy Comey Barrett side with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Elena Kagan in dissent.
In the decision, the Court wrote that the lawyers representing migrants who were deported to El Salvador should’ve filed their lawsuit in Texas, rather than Washington, D.C. The Trump administration used the Alien Enemies Act, first enacted in 1798, to deport over 100 Venezuelans it claimed were members of Tren de Aragua, a notorious street gang in that country. They argued that the powers of the act, which allows the president to detain or deport citizens of enemy nations, was applicable in this case. Federal Judge James E. Boasberg directed the administration to stop the deportation flights, particularly as the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia came to light. Garcia, a Maryland man and legal resident since 2019, was among those deported on March 15.
The Supreme Court’s opinion also called for all future potential cases for deportation go through due process in court: “AEA 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.”
Trump crowed about the decision on his Truth Social media platform, writing: “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!” His glee was in contrast to the grave concern expressed by Justice Sotomayor, who wrote that “The Government’s conduct in this litigation poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law. We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than this.” Justice Brown Jackson compared the case to the infamous Korematsu v. United States decision, which allowed for Japanese-Americans to be herded into internment camps during World War II. “But make no mistake: We are just as wrong now as we have been in the past, with similarly devastating consequences,” she wrote in the dissent.
