Trump DOJ Turns to Supreme Court to Lift Ban on El Salvador Deportation Scheme

The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to lift a lower court restriction on the Trump administration's ability to continue to carrying out deportations using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority U.S. President Donald Trump invoked in mid-March to deport Venezuelan immigrants he alleged, without evidence, were criminal gang members but who legal experts say are the victims of authoritarian overreach and still entitled to due process.

The deportees are currently being held at a megaprison in El Salvador, which U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem toured on Wednesday, in part to film a video in front of the incarcerated men—a move that was widely decried as sadistic and fascist behavior by a senior administration official.

On March 15, the same day that Trump published an executive order stating its intention to use the Alien Enemies Act to carry out deportations, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued a nationwide temporary restraining order, halting furthering removals of noncitizens under The Alien Enemies Act. The rarely used provision, never before invoked when the U.S. was not engaged in a war authorized by Congress, gives the president the ability to detain or deport noncitizens without first appearing before an immigration judge or federal court judge.

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court panel kept in place Boasberg's order while the court decides on the underlying legal issues in the case—prompting the Trump administration to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The administration is asking the court to overturn Boasberg's block, arguing that—in the words of Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris—the "case presents fundamental questions about who decides how to conduct sensitive national-security-related operations in this country—the president, through Article II, or the judiciary, through [temporary restraining orders]."

As with other recent appeals from the Trump administration, according to CNN, the White House's argument before the Supreme Court leaned on complaints that the lower courts are standing in Trump's way.

"Only this court can stop rule-by-[temporary restraining order] from further upending the separation of powers—the sooner, the better," Harris told the Supreme Court. "Here, the district court's orders have rebuffed the president's judgments as to how to protect the nation against foreign terrorist organizations and risk debilitating effects for delicate foreign negotiations."

On March 18, Trump called Boasberg a “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator," and also said that "this judge, like many of the Crooked Judges' I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!" Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) said a few days prior that he would be would "be filing articles of impeachment against activist Judge James Boasberg."

Days later, John Roberts, the conservative chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, issued a rare statement rebuking calls from Trump and members of his orbit for the impeachment of federal judges who have ruled against the administration.