Albeit on a technicality, but nevertheless a step in the right direction.
April 7, 2025, 7:14 p.m. ET
New York Times
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday night that the Trump administration could continue to deport Venezuelan migrants based on a wartime powers act for now, overturning a lower court that had put a temporary stop to the deportations.
The decision marks a victory for the Trump administration, although the ruling is narrow and focused on the proper venue for the cases, rather than on the administration’s use of a centuries-old law to justify its decision to send planeloads of Venezuelans to El Salvador with little to no due process.
The justices did not address the question of whether the Trump administration improperly categorized the Venezuelans as deportable under the Alien Enemies Act, finding the migrants had improperly challenged their deportations in Washington, D.C. The justices determined that the migrants should have raised challenges in Texas, where they were being held.
“The detainees are confined in Texas, so venue is improper in the District of Columbia,” according to the court’s order, which was brief and unsigned, as is typical in such emergency applications.
In a concurrence, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh stressed that the justices were in agreement that the migrants should receive judicial review, but that they were divided over where the case should be heard.
“As the court stresses, the court’s disagreement with the dissenters is not over whether the detainees receive judicial review of their transfers — all nine members of the court agree that judicial review is available,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote. “The only question is where that judicial review should occur.”
The case is perhaps the most high-profile of the eight emergency applications the Trump administration has filed with the Supreme Court so far, and it presents a direct collision between the judicial and executive branches.
The administration had asked the justices to weigh in on its effort to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport more than 100 Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador.
The administration claims the migrants are all members of Tren de Aragua, a violent street gang rooted in Venezuela, and that their removals are allowed under the act, which grants the president authority to detain or deport citizens of enemy nations. The president may invoke the law in times of “declared war” or when a foreign government invades the United States.
On March 14, President Trump signed a proclamation that targeted members of Tren de Aragua, claiming that there was an “invasion” and a “predatory incursion” underway as he invoked the wartime law. In the proclamation, Mr. Trump claimed that the gang was “undertaking hostile actions” against the United States “at the direction, clandestine or otherwise” of the Venezuelan government.
Once the SCOTUS is cleaned up then, and only then, will they actually do their job as they should…….it’s going to happen, but in the meantime we’ll have to settle for this….it’s as stated a start, a puny start.
What a bunch of turncoats…or cowards. If you entered illegally you have no right to be here…period. If you decided to get married…have a family while you were here illegally then that’s on you. Your fault. Not the US.