The Supreme Court on Friday slammed the brakes on President Donald Trump’s efforts to move deportations into the fast lane.
In a 7-2 ruling, the court said illegal immigrants from Venezuela who Trump sought to deport under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act need more notice than the administration wanted to give them, according to Fox News.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the decision that said illegal immigrants Trump wants to deport have a legal right to get more time to challenge their deportations in court.
The ruling noted the limits of its scope.
Trump blasts Supreme Court after it blocks move to deport Venezuelan migrants under rare 1798 wartime law, calling the ruling a disaster that will flood America with criminals
🔗 https://t.co/gyMag1eWa7 pic.twitter.com/dFtDuUF9iT— TRT World (@trtworld) May 16, 2025
“To be clear, we decide today only that the detainees are entitled to more notice than was given on April 18,” the ruling said.
The ruling sends the case back to a federal appeals court, according to The New York Times.
The Supreme Court charged the appellate court with making two determinations — whether the Alien Enemies Act could be used to deport them and, if so, how much notice should be required so that they can challenge their deportations.
Trump had been trying to use the law to deport members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
The majority also ruled that “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.”
The decision “means that more individuals will not secretly be sent to a brutal prison in El Salvador,” Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in reaction. He added that the administration’s use of the wartime law “during peacetime, without due process, raises issues of far-reaching importance.”
Trump posted an irate reaction on Truth Social.
“The Supreme Court has just ruled that the worst murderers, drug dealers, gang members, and even those who are mentally insane, who came into our Country illegally, are not allowed to be forced out without going through a long, protracted, and expensive Legal Process, one that will take, possibly, many years for each person, and one that will allow these people to commit many crimes before they even see the inside of a Courthouse,” Trump wrote.
“The result of this decision will let more CRIMINALS pour into our Country, doing great harm to our cherished American public. It will also encourage other criminals to illegally enter our Country, wreaking havoc and bedlam wherever they go,” he added.
“The Supreme Court of the United States is not allowing me to do what I was elected to do,” he wrote.
“Sleepy Joe Biden allowed MILLIONS of Criminal Aliens to come into our Country without any ‘PROCESS’ but, in order to get them out of our Country, we have to go through a long and extended PROCESS,” the president continued.
“In any event, thank you to Justice Alito and Justice Thomas for attempting to protect our Country. This is a bad and dangerous day for America!” he wrote.
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