In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) sided against President Donald Trump's administration on Friday in a high-profile case.
Slate legal writer Mark Joseph Stern reported Friday that SCOTUS determined that the Trump administration violated the due process rights of more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants it deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Stern further reported that the decision prohibits Trump from further deportations under the 18th century law, and that lower courts must now decide how to make sure deportees are still processed in accordance with the Constitution.
All justices voted in the majority, save for Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. This means that all three of Trump's first-term Supreme Court appointees — Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — went against the administration's position.
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In the majority's opinion, which was written by Kavanaugh, the Court took the administration to task over its failure to provide deported immigrants with appropriate due process:
"The Government has represented elsewhere that it is unable to provide for the return of an individual deported in error to a prison in El Salvador ... where it is alleged that detainees face indefinite detention," the opinion read. "The detainees’ interests at stake are accordingly particularly weighty. Under these circumstances, notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal surely does not pass muster."
This decision comes after the Court ruled 9-0 against Trump last month in the case of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was included in that initial group of Venezuelans sent to El Salvador. Justices ordered the Trump administration to "facilitate" the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States, though he currently still remains incarcerated in El Salvador.
Click here to read the full decision.
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