The Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision on Monday night allowed Trump to resume deportations of alleged members of Venezuelan gangs under the Alien Enemies Law, but said that detainees should receive due process to challenge their elimination.
The unproven opinion of Curiam said that a Federal District Court in Washington lacks the jurisdiction to address the matter, raising a temporary restriction order issued by the Judge of the United States District Court, James Boasberg.
Migrants “Claims are within the nucleus of the Order of Habeas Corpus and, therefore, must appear in habit,” said the court.
Four Dissentative judges: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Amy Coney Barrett.
The alleged members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Aragua Train, which were deported by the United States government, are arrested at the Center for Confinement of Terrorism in Tecoluca, El Salvador in a photo obtained on March 16, 2025.
El Salvador presidential press office through AP
However, the majority of the court made it clear that migrants eliminated under the AEA authority should receive notice and “provide within a reasonable time and in such a way that it really allows them to seek the relief of habeas in the right place before such elimination occurs.”
Sotomayor, in a dissent attached by Kagan, Jackson and Barrett, described the “suspicious” decision and without any “mention of the serious damage that the plaintiffs will face if they are erroneously eliminated to El Salvador or with respect to the government’s attempts to subvert the process judged throughout this litigation.”
“The government’s behavior in this litigation raises an extraordinary threat to the rule of law,” writes Sotomayor. “That the majority of this court now rewards the Government for its behavior with a discretionary equitable relief is indefensible. We, as a nation and a court of justice, should be better than this. I remember respectfully.”
-ABC News’ Devin Dwyer
