The US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has fired off a blistering dissent against the court’s order to halt the Trump administration’s deportation of Venezuelan illegal immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (AEA).
The court had previously allowed the Trump administration to continue deportations under the act on a limited basis with due process. However, the new ruling halted the deportation of all Venezuelan immigrants until the government receives further instructions from the court.
“The Government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court,” the unsigned order stated.
In an unexpected turn of events, conservative justices Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett voted in favor of halting the deportations in a 7-2 ruling. However, Justice Clarence Thomas joined Justice Alito in the fiery dissent.
Meanwhile, Justice Alito questioned the timing of the ruling, which he claims was issued “hastily and prematurely” within eight hours of receiving the notice, “literally in the middle of the night” and without giving lower courts time to sort out the facts of the cases.
“[T]he Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support for its order, and without providing any explanation for its order,” he fumed.
“I refused to join the Court’s order because we had no good reason to think that, under the circumstances, issuing an order at midnight was necessary or appropriate,” he continued, adding that “Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law.”
The court had intervened after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a request for intervention, claiming that dozens of Venezuelan immigrants, currently numbering about 50, faced an imminent threat of deportation without the opportunity to contest their removal from the country. Law enforcement authorities have linked many of the potential deportees, currently held at the Northern District of Texas’ Bluebonnet Detention Center, with the bloody Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA).
Some had filed an Administrative Procedure Act (APA) complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging their removal. Liberal federal Judge James Boasberg ruled in their favor and gave them a temporary restraining order (TRO) preventing their removal.
However, the Trump administration challenged the decision, arguing that it had given them advance notification, allowing them to challenge their detention and deportation by filing habeas claims. SCOTUS agreed with Trump and trashed Boasberg’s restraining order, paving the way for their eventual removal.
Their attorneys subsequently moved to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas and filed a habeas corpus for all Venezuelans pending deportation. However, Judge James Wesley Hendrix failed to grant them a TRO, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the decision.
Subsequently, they requested the Supreme Court to intervene, which it did without allowing the Trump administration to defend itself. Nonetheless, it allowed the government to file a response after the ruling, which was no less scathing than Alito’s dissent.
“The government has agreed not to remove, pursuant the AEA, those AEA detainees who do file habeas claims (including the putative class representatives),” the admin stated.
“This Court should dissolve its current administrative stay and allow the lower courts to address the relevant legal and factual questions in the first instance — including the development of a proper factual record.”
