Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented in the Supreme Court’s decision on Saturday to block the Trump administration from deporting a group of Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members under a rarely invoked 18th century wartime law, calling the court’s order “hastily and prematurely granted.”
In his five-page dissent released on Saturday shortly before midnight, Justice Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote that in his view, the court’s decision to intervene overnight was not “necessary or appropriate.”
The court’s unsigned, one-paragraph order came after a fast-moving legal battle late Friday. The American Civil Liberties Union had rushed to several lower courts, then to the Supreme Court, claiming that the Trump administration was planning to deport more Venezuelan migrants, presumably to El Salvador, with little to no due process under the wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act.
The Supreme Court’s decision ordered a pause on the deportations of the detainees while it considers the emergency application.
The order suggested a deep skepticism on the court about whether the Trump administration could be trusted to live up to the key part of an earlier ruling that said detainees were entitled to be notified if the government intended to deport them under the law, “within a reasonable time,” and in a way that would allow the deportees to challenge the move.
“In sum, literally in the middle of the night, the court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief,” Justice Alito wrote in his dissent, “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.”
Justice Alito said that he had 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.”
Abbie VanSickle covers the United States Supreme Court for The Times. She is a lawyer and has an extensive background in investigative reporting.
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