Deported Venezuelans at CECOT prison in El Salvador. USA Today/Reuters
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Trump administration can continue to deport illegal aliens under the Alien Enemies Act but also said that the deportees must have a hearing before a judge. USA Today. The Justices said in a 5-4 ruling that the case was brought in the wrong district since the deportees were in Texas but the case was filed in Washington DC. This will allow the Trump administration to continue to deport members of the Tren De Aragua unless a new order is filed in a Texas court. However, the Justices said that the deportees would need to be able to contest claims that they were members of the gang.
My Comment:
This is a partial win for the Trump administration. At the very least, deportations under the Alien Enemies Act will be able to continue, albeit at a much slower pace. I would have preferred that the Justices simply ruled that the President obviously has the authority to deport gang members under the law, but instead they just kicked the can down the road. I am guessing there will be another case filed soon, but hopefully with a more unbiased judge.
The restrictions placed on the Administration is a double edged sword. Though I have been extremely skeptical of claims that non-gang members were deported, having a judge decide the evidence in a case by case basis would prevent that from happening. That wouldn't be much of an injustice, in any case it's not citizens being deported, but it might be less contested if these deportations were done by the book.
The problem is that it will slow things down. Hearings and rulings take an absurd amount of time and I have a real fear that the whole process will be slowed down to the point where deportations will only continue at a trickle, instead of the flood we need to actually change things. The Trump administration will have to move fast to get these cases through the court, before they run out of time, either due to the end of Trump's term, or another biased judge rules against them.
The good news is that this case will likely permanently be removed from Judge Boasberg. Boasberg obviously showed quite a bit of bias against the administration and I don't believe he was ruling in good faith. His only goal appeared to be throwing a wrench in the Trump administration and it's a good thing he won't be ruling on anything related to this case. Hopefully a friendlier judge will be put into place.
I was surprised at the makeup of the 5-4 decision. Obviously, it's not surprising that the three most conservative members of the court ruled in favor of the Trump administration while the three liberal justices dissented. But it is surprising that Chief Justice Roberts ruled with the majority while Justice Barrett joined the dissent. Given how much tension there is between Roberts and Trump, it was good to see him ruling the right way here. Barrett though has been a huge disappointment, it's crazy that she would join the dissent.
I am hoping that more rulings are going to come out from the Supreme Court. The Democrat's only strategy has been lawfare and at this point they should be considered vexatious litigants. Most of these cases are on shaky legal ground at best and it's frustrating that the Court isn't putting an end to more of these cases.
Finally, I have to say that Trump should be talking about illegal immigration more than he is now. It's a winning issue for him and one that he's not getting enough credit for. Folks consider it a "solved" issue now and a problem that is basically fixed. Nobody is really crossing the border and illegal immigrants are slowly but surely being deported. But instead of touting his victory, the issue has taken a back burner to other things lately. Given that I'm convinced that was the main mistake Trump made in the 2020 election, I think he should be constantly talking about his successes in immigration.
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