George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Sunday that justices on the Supreme Court are showing signs of “frustration” with lower courts over deportation cases.
The Supreme Court temporarily halted the Trump administration’s efforts to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) early Saturday morning, saying detainees needed to have a chance to challenge their deportations. Turley said the high court was being forced into an “increasingly improvisational” approach by the sheer number of emergency cases.
“What Justice Alito is objecting to is that this is becoming increasingly improvisational,” Turley told “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream. “You have covered the Supreme Court for years, as I have, and we rarely see this level of number of emergency cases going in front of the Supreme Court. And a lot of them are half-baked in the sense that they simply don’t have the normal details, the record that you have. And the justices are expressing their frustration.”
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Turley observed that United States District Judge Boasberg of the District of Columbia had particularly irritated some of the justices.
“Previously, they expressed frustration for the district courts. You know, in the case of Judge Boasberg, they said, ‘What is this doing in your court? This is a habeas case that belongs down south.’ And I think that they are showing some of that frustration,” Turley told Bream. “And I think all parties should take heed of that. I think going to the Fourth Circuit decision, the Trump administration should not be alienating Chief Justice Roberts and others. They need to tone down this language a bit.”
President Donald Trump issued several executive orders to address illegal immigration and border security, including designating Mexican drug cartels, TdA and the El Salvadoran prison gang MS-13 as foreign terrorist organizations upon taking office Jan. 20. Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to speed up the deportation of gang members on March 15.
Boasberg issued a March 15 injunction ordering the Trump administration to turn two planes carrying members of TdA to El Salvador around. Boasberg has since threatened to hold the Trump administration in contempt of court for not turning the planes around.
The Supreme Court overturned Boasberg’s orders in a 5-4 decision issued April 7, saying Boasberg lacked the authority to issue the injunction since he was in the District of Columbia while the illegal immigrants were being detained in Texas. One of the new legal challenges is in Texas.
“A lot of these challengers are bringing these cases fast and furious to the court, and what Alito is saying is, ‘What are we basing this decision on? These things are coming to us with virtually no record.’”
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