SCOTUS is allowing Trump’s administration to 'defy the justice system as it pleases'

26 June

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on January 25, 2025 (Tia Dufori/Department of Homeland Security/Wikimedia Commons)

The U.S. Supreme Court, on Monday, June 23, halted a lower federal court ruling that blocked President Donald Trump's administration from deporting people to countries other than their own without 15 days' notice. And Barack Obama-appointed Justice Sonia Sotomayor was downright scathing in her dissent, writing, "The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone, anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard."

Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, both Democratic appointees, joined Sotomayor in her dissent.

In an article published on June 26, Slate's Shirin Ali points to that June 23 ruling as an example of the High Court's right-wing supermajority failing to rein in the Trump Administration's "overreach."

"Less than three months after the Supreme Court shot down an injunction preventing deportations under the Alien Enemies Act," Ali explains, "it released another historic shadow docket decision. The majority of the justices chose to lift a lower court judge's injunction that had, up until Monday, prevented the federal government from removing immigrants from the U.S. to third countries, instead of their home country of origin, without at least giving them advance notice and allowing them to object on the grounds that they face torture there…. The Supreme Court's intervention comes after the Trump Administration repeatedly violated U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy's orders by attempting to send migrants to South Sudan, Libya, and El Salvador."

Ali continues, "The targets of this scheme argue that they will be tortured and killed if removed to these countries, making their expulsions unlawful under the Convention Against Torture and various federal laws. Murphy ruled that, at a minimum, the government must tell migrants where they are being sent, and give them an opportunity to object, with the assistance of counsel, on the grounds that they'll be tortured there."

Ali agrees with Sotomayor's dissent, arguing that the June 23 decision "shocks the conscience" because it "effectively allows the federal government to get away scot-free with defying a lower court judge's order, establishing an extraordinarily dangerous precedent."

"It also subjects thousands of migrants to potential torture and death overseas in clear violation of federal law," Ali warns. "And the justices offered zero explanation, since they issued their order on the shadow docket."

Deborah Pearlstein, a law professor at Princeton University in New Jersey, shares Ali's disdain for the June 23 ruling.

Pearlstein told Ali, "The Court's order is certainly apt to have immediate and devastating consequences for all those in the crosshairs of the (Trump) Administration's chaotic and increasingly random deportation campaign. Moreover, it sends a really frightening signal about whether the Court is going to stand up to what are increasingly blatant instances of Administration defiance of court orders."

Shirin Ali's full article for Slate is available at this link (subscription required).

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