Waington: The United States Supreme Court swept this week another obstacle to one of the most aggressive policies of President Donald Trump, mass deportation, again showing his willingness to support his hard line approach for immigration.
However, the judges have indicated some reservations with how they are carrying it out. Since Trump returned to the White House in January, the court has already been called to intervene in an emerging manner in seven legal fights for his offensive against immigration.
Recently, it allowed the Trump administration to end the temporary legal status provided to hundreds of thousands of migrants for humanitarian reasons for their Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, while the legal challenges in two cases take place in the lower courts.
The Supreme Court raised on Friday the order of a judge who had stopped the revocation of the “probation” of immigration for more than 500,000 Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants. On May 19, he lifted the order of another judge that avoided the termination of the “temporary protected state” for more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants.
However, in some other cases, judges have ruled that the administration should treat migrants fairly, as required in the guarantee of the United States Constitution of due process.
“This president has been more aggressive than any other in the modern history of the United States to quickly eliminate non -citizens of the country,” said Kevin Johnson, an expert in immigration and public interest at the University of California, Davis.
No president in modern history “has been so willing to deport non -citizens without due process,” Johnson added.
This dynamic has forced the Supreme Court to monitor the contours of the administration’s actions, if it is less the legality of Trump’s underlying policies. The conservative majority of 6-3 of the court includes three judges appointed by Trump during his first term as president.
“President Trump is acting within his legal authority to deport illegal aliens and protect the US people. While the Supreme Court has legitimately recognized the president’s authority in some cases, in others they have invented new rights of due process for illegal foreigners who will make the United States less safe. We are confident in the legality of our actions and continue to fight to maintain the promises of the president of Trump.” Reuters
The judges twice, on April 7 and May 16, have put limits to the attempt of the administration to implement the invocation of Trump of a law of 1798 called Alien Enemies Law, which historically has only been used in times of war, to quickly deport Venezuelan immigrants who has accused of being members of the Aragua train gang.
The lawyers and relatives of some of the migrants have played the accusation of gang membership. On May 16, the judges also said an offer of the administration to deport migrants from a detention center in Texas basic constitutional requirements failed. Give the notification of migrants “approximately 24 hours before elimination, devoid of information on how to exercise due process to challenge that elimination, it is surely not approved,” said the court.
Due process generally requires that the government provide notice and an opportunity for an audience before taking certain adverse actions.
The Court has not directly prohibited the administration to pursue these deportations under the Alien Enemies Law, since judges have not yet decided the legality of using the law for this purpose.
The United States government last invoked the Alien Enemies Law during World War II to intern and deport people of Japanese, German and Italian ancestry.
“The Supreme Court has reaffirmed in several cases some basic principles of constitutional law (including that), the due process clause applies to all people on American soil,” said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic of the Columbia Law Faculty.
Even for the alleged gang members, Mukherjee said, the court “has been extremely clear that they have the right to notice before they can be summarily deported from the United States.”
An erroneously imported man
In a separate case, the Court on April 10 ordered the Administration to facilitate the release of custody in El Salvador de Kilmar Abrego García, a Salvadoran migrant who lived in Maryland. The administration has recognized that Abrego García was erroneously deported to El Salvador.
The administration has not yet returned Abrego García to the United States, which according to some critics amounts to the challenge of the Supreme Court.
Posted in Dawn, June 1, 2025
