Conservative Supreme Court judge, Amy Coney Barrett, has sided with the court’s liberal wing in opposing the use of wartime legislation to deport civilians.
Why It Matters
Coney Barrett, who was nominated by Trump, has emerged as a centrist judge with a key role in deciding major Supreme Court cases.
What To Know
On April 7, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to use the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport criminal suspects from the U.S. but said they must get a court hearing.
It comes after the Trump administration deported more than 200 Venezuelan nationals, whom the U.S. alleges have ties to the Tren de Aragua street gang.
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s emergency request while legal challenges proceeded.
Amy Coney Barrett was the sole conservative to dissent, siding with the three liberal judges: Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
However, Coney Barrett was very careful in choosing which parts of Sotomayor’s strident dissenting opinion she supported.
While Kagan and Brown Jackson put their names to Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion in total, Coney Barrett only agreed with Part II and Section B of Part III.
That means that, while Coney Barrett agreed with Sotomayor’s overall opinion, she avoided some of Sotomayor’s most colorful criticisms of the Trump administration.
For example, in Part I, Sotomayor alleged that the Trump administration was trying to covertly deport people without judicial oversight.
Rushing People Out Of The Country
Sotomayor wrote: “The Government’s plan, it appeared, was to rush plaintiffs out of the country before a court could decide whether the President’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was lawful or whether these individuals were, in fact, members of Tren de Aragua.”
Coney Barrett agreed entirely with Part II of Sotomayor’s opinion, which is far more conciliatory in tone and finds common ground with the court’s conservative majority.
Here, Sotomayor notes that all the Supreme Court justices agree on a crucial point: that anyone facing deportation under the Alien Enemies Act is entitled to a court hearing and due process.
“Begin with that upon which all nine Members of this Court agree. The Court’s order today dictates, in no uncertain terms, that ‘individual[s] subject to detention and removal under the [Alien Enemies Act are] entitled to judicial review as to questions of interpretation and constitutionality of the Act’ as well as whether he or she ‘is in fact an alien enemy fourteen years of age or older,’” Sotomayor wrote.
Criticizing The Majority
However, Coney Barrett did not shy away from criticizing the court’s conservative majority for taking the case on an emergency basis, without letting it first go through the normal federal appeal court system.
Here, she agreed with Section B of Part III, in which Sotomayor criticized the Supreme Court majority for hurriedly overruling a Washington, D.C. district court judge, James Boasberg, who had halted the deportations.
“If the District Court were to resolve the question in plaintiffs’ favor, the Government could have appealed to this Court in the ordinary course, and we could have decided it after thorough briefing and oral argument.”
“In its rush to decide the issue now, the Court halts the lower court’s work and forces us to decide the matter after mere days of deliberation and without adequate time to weigh the parties’ arguments or the full record of the District Court’s proceedings,” Sotomayor complained.
Overall, Coney Barrett took a very careful route, avoiding the more strident criticism of the Trump administration while siding with the liberals in criticizing the Supreme Court majority for agreeing to take the case.
As Chief Justice John Robert is in charge of deciding which emergency cases should be heard from the Washington, D.C. circuit, there is also an implied criticism of his actions.
What People Are Saying
Conservative backlash against Coney Barrett was swift.
Conservative influencer Rogan O’Handley, known as DC_Draino, wrote on X (former Twitter): “While this Supreme Court victory for Trump allowing him to deport cartels is huge, it was only a 5-4 decision. Guess who joined the 3 liberal Justices to keep cartels here in America? Amy Coney Barrett.”
Major MAGA figure Catturd, who has 3.6 million followers on X, posted: “There’s nobody I have less respect for in the entire country besides Dr. Fauci than Amy Commie Barrett.”
“Weak, coward, sellout, fraud. She’s everything that’s wrong with this country. She’s an Absolute disgusting fraud.”
MAGA poster Kim ‘Katie’ USA wrote on X in response to the decision: “Appointing a woman, namely Amy Coney Barrett, was a huge mistake.”
What Happens Next
The case returns to the district court in Washington, D.C. With the Supreme Court accepting that Trump can use the Alien Enemies Act, the government is in a much stronger position.
However, the court also recognized that everyone facing deportation under the Alien Enemies Act must be granted a court hearing, a fact warmly welcomed by Sotomayor in her dissenting opinion.
That means that Boasberg may be able to order the return of the deported men for a hearing in the U.S.
The post Why Amy Coney Barrett Sided With Liberals on Deportation Case appeared first on Newsweek.
