Trump Asks Supreme Court to Let Him Deport Migrants Without Due Process (2025)

On Friday, Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to overturn a temporary court order and let him deport migrants without a hearing after he sent almost 300 Venezuelan migrants to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador. The filing argues that the president has the ultimate authority to remove people based on their nationality.

“This case presents fundamental questions about who decides how to conduct sensitive national-security-related operations in this country — the President … or the Judiciary,” Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in the filing. “The Constitution supplies a clear answer: the President. The republic cannot afford a different choice.”

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court upheld the temporary restraining order blocking the deportations put in place by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on March 15. The Trump administration has cited the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that was also used to justify Japanese internment during WWII, to justify the deportations.

Two flights were already in the air at the time of Boasberg’s initial ruling earlier this month, and he ordered that the migrants be returned to the United States. They did not return. The migrants — who supposedly had ties to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua —were sent to El Salvador without any due process. Relatives and friends of some of the migrants have denied they have any ties to gangs, and have suggested they were targeted based on their unrelated tattoos. For example, a 24-year-old Venezuelan seems to have been deported based on a tattoo of a ribbon representing the autism acceptance movement. The deportations have been widely condemned by human rights activists.

“The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at the time. “The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA [Tren de Aragua gang] aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Thursday that judges have no authority to block Trump’s deportations, suggesting the matter would soon be before the Supreme Court.

“These judges across the country … they think they have authority, but it’s going to be short-lived because these cases are going to get to the Supreme Court very fast,” she said. “We’re doing everything we can.”

The Supreme Court is controlled by conservatives justices, three of which Trump appointed during his first term. The extent to which they will accommodate Trump’s apparent lawlessness is unclear. Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to rebuke Trump earlier this month after Trump wrote that Boasberg should be impeached for trying to stop the administration’s deportation agenda.

The Alien Enemies Act lets the president detain or deport people based on their birth country or citizenship if the U.S. is at war with their country. The idea that the U.S. is at war with Venezuela is dubious, to say the least.

“Although the law was enacted to prevent foreign espionage and sabotage in wartime, it can be — and has been — wielded against immigrants who have done nothing wrong, have evinced no signs of disloyalty, and are lawfully present in the United States,” writes Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel in the nonprofit Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, who calls himself the “world’s coolest dictator,” created the mega-prison, known as CECOT, in 2022. It can hold up to 40,000 prisoners; Salvadorans have been incarcerated there without due process as part of the country’s own gang crackdown.