Alito Issues Scathing Rebuke Of Supreme Court’s ‘Middle Of The Night’ Deportation Interference
Justice Samuel Alito has choice words for his high bench colleagues who released a blanket opinion “literally in the middle of the night” on Saturday, ordering the Trump administration to halt the deportation of Venezuelans suspected of being Tren De Aragua gang members from custody in the Northern District of Texas.
In his dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Alito argued the court “hastily and prematurely granted unprecedented emergency relief” to an expanded number of suspected criminal aliens in a “legally questionable” manner — especially because “it is not clear that the Court had jurisdiction.”
Contrary to his fellow justices’ assumption of authority, Alito noted even the Fifth Circuit “held that it lacked jurisdiction” because it was unsure whether a District Court’s failure to rule on the alleged gang members’ request for a temporary restraining order “before the expiration of a truncated counsel-imposed deadline” counted as a denial. Alito clarified later in the dissent that the counsel for the Venezuelans “insisted on a ruling within 45 minutes on Good Friday afternoon” and proceeded with an appeal when that demand was not met.
“The denial of a true TRO is not appealable, and here, it is not clear that the applicants’ TRO request was actually denied,” Alito continued.
Questions about the authority to rule on this matter weren’t Alito’s only problem with the Supreme Court’s intervention. In his three-page rebuke, the justice complained that the high bench, which routinely sends cases back to lower courts for resolution, ignored the Court of Appeals’ consideration of emergency relief to issue its own decision.
Alito also wrote that his fellow justices failed to consider or request a response from the Trump administration about this particular issue. Instead, the Supreme Court barrelled ahead by granting the petitioners’ wishes even though they “provided little concrete support” that they “were in imminent danger of removal.”
“Although this Court did not hear directly from the Government regarding any planned deportations under the Alien Enemies Act in this matter, an attorney representing the Government in a different matter informed the District Court in that case during a hearing yesterday evening that no such deportations were then planned to occur either yesterday, April 18, or today, April 19,” Alito continued.
Alito’s final criticism centered on the court’s attempt to grant relief to a sweeping group of people even though “this Court has never held that class relief may be sought in a habeas proceeding.”
“In sum, literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support for its order, and without providing any explanation for its order,” Alito concluded.
The justice ultimately “refused to join the Court’s order because we had no good reason to
think that, under the circumstances, issuing an order at midnight was necessary or appropriate.”
This isn’t Alito’s first reprimand of justices for letting petitioners and lower courts run amok on the high bench’s time. In March, Alito scolded his colleagues for letting a rogue Washington, D.C. judge tell the Trump administration how it could spend its money.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
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