Ignore the Trump administration’s gleeful rhetoric on the Alien Enemies Act ruling. This was a setback.
The Trump administration is preening after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling Monday night on the Alien Enemies Act, the war powers law it used last month to summarily deport Venezuelan migrants before courts could intervene. “President Trump was proven RIGHT once again,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi L. Noem said on X. In fact, the justices unanimously blew up the administration’s political and legal positions.
Representing the White House’s political line, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said last month: “It is fundamentally incompatible to have a country and have individual expulsions adjudicated by a single district court judge.” The Supreme Court’s ruling will ensure that individual expulsions under the AEA are adjudicated by single district court judges.
As the majority wrote: “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.” Note the pointed “actually.”
The Trump administration is preening after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling Monday night on the Alien Enemies Act, the war powers law it used last month to summarily deport Venezuelan migrants before courts could intervene. “President Trump was proven RIGHT once again,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi L. Noem said on X. In fact, the justices unanimously blew up the administration’s political and legal positions.
Representing the White House’s political line, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said last month: “It is fundamentally incompatible to have a country and have individual expulsions adjudicated by a single district court judge.” The Supreme Court’s ruling will ensure that individual expulsions under the AEA are adjudicated by single district court judges.
As the majority wrote: “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.” Note the pointed “actually.”
“The statute permits absolute discretion to establish the conditions and processes the Executive will use,” the government said. Though it reluctantly conceded that migrants “may file a petition for habeas,” it sneered that “nothing requires the government to delay removal to permit access to habeas on the alien’s preferred timeline.” The government wanted to resume the summary deportations that a judge had paused.
The Supreme Court is not allowing that. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in dissent: “To the extent the Government removes even one individual without affording him notice and a meaningful opportunity to file and pursue habeas relief, it does so in direct contravention of an edict by the United States Supreme Court.” But she (as well as the other Democratic-appointed justices and Justice Amy Coney Barrett) would have gone further. They would have left in place the orders by District Judge James E. Boasberg blocking AEA deportations altogether.
The majority vacated Boasberg’s orders because it deemed D.C. the wrong venue for the plaintiffs — who are being held in Texas — to challenge their deportations...
The Washington Post - Jason Willick
The Trump administration is preening after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling Monday night on the Alien Enemies Act, the war powers law it used last month to summarily deport Venezuelan migrants before courts could intervene. “President Trump was proven RIGHT once again,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi L. Noem said on X. In fact, the justices unanimously blew up the administration’s political and legal positions.
Representing the White House’s political line, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said last month: “It is fundamentally incompatible to have a country and have individual expulsions adjudicated by a single district court judge.” The Supreme Court’s ruling will ensure that individual expulsions under the AEA are adjudicated by single district court judges.
As the majority wrote: “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.” Note the pointed “actually.”
The Trump administration is preening after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling Monday night on the Alien Enemies Act, the war powers law it used last month to summarily deport Venezuelan migrants before courts could intervene. “President Trump was proven RIGHT once again,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi L. Noem said on X. In fact, the justices unanimously blew up the administration’s political and legal positions.
Representing the White House’s political line, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said last month: “It is fundamentally incompatible to have a country and have individual expulsions adjudicated by a single district court judge.” The Supreme Court’s ruling will ensure that individual expulsions under the AEA are adjudicated by single district court judges.
As the majority wrote: “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.” Note the pointed “actually.”
“The statute permits absolute discretion to establish the conditions and processes the Executive will use,” the government said. Though it reluctantly conceded that migrants “may file a petition for habeas,” it sneered that “nothing requires the government to delay removal to permit access to habeas on the alien’s preferred timeline.” The government wanted to resume the summary deportations that a judge had paused.
The Supreme Court is not allowing that. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in dissent: “To the extent the Government removes even one individual without affording him notice and a meaningful opportunity to file and pursue habeas relief, it does so in direct contravention of an edict by the United States Supreme Court.” But she (as well as the other Democratic-appointed justices and Justice Amy Coney Barrett) would have gone further. They would have left in place the orders by District Judge James E. Boasberg blocking AEA deportations altogether.
The majority vacated Boasberg’s orders because it deemed D.C. the wrong venue for the plaintiffs — who are being held in Texas — to challenge their deportations...
The Washington Post - Jason Willick
