In recent decisions, conservatives on the Supreme Court overturned or trimmed lower court rulings against the Trump administration.
SCOTUS orders mistakenly deported Maryland man’s return to US
The Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man deported to El Salvador.
- “It will be interesting to see whether the district courts get the message that they need to be careful,” said Michael McConnell, a Stanford law professor and former federal appeals judge.
- In additon to deportaton-related cases, the Supreme Court also sided with Trump over his firing of 16,000 federal workers based on a technicality.
WASHINGTON − Will the Supreme Court be the Trump administration’s friend or foe as it faces a flurry of legal challenges to the president’s earliest policies?
Several conservative Supreme Court justices appear to agree with Trump officials on at least one thing: That some lower court judges have gone too far in their rulings. In a string of recent decisions from April 4 through Thursday, the Supreme Court either overturned or trimmed lower court rulings against the Trump administration.
On April 4, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow the Trump administration to halt millions of dollars in teacher training grants. On Monday, the high court freed the Trump administration to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members under the authority of an 18th-century law, the Alien Enemies Act. On Tuesday, the court sided with Trump officials by blocking 16,000 fired federal workers from being reinstated to their jobs.
In a closely watched saga, the high court last week week pushed back against Trump officials, ordering them to facilitate the return of a wrongly-deported Maryland father. But even then, the court ordered the trial judge in the case to clarify her initial ruling to make sure she recognized the administration’s authority over foreign affairs.
“It will be interesting to see whether the district courts get the message that they need to be careful,” Michael McConnell, a Stanford law professor and former George W. Bush-appointed federal appeals court judge, told USA TODAY. “Just because they’re outraged by what the administration may have done doesn’t mean that they can do whatever they want to do.”
The decisions came in response to four of at least 10 emergency applications the Trump administration has filed at the high court in its first 80 days. The Supreme Court still needs to rule on several of those applications, which are on track to greatly outpace President Joe Biden’s administration: it filed just 19 such applications in four years.
In the three clearest wins for Trump since April 4, he received crucial support from several of the Republican-appointed justices, who outnumber Democratic appointees 6-3. The Thursday order for his administration to return the Maryland man it wrongly deported to El Salvador had support from all nine justices, but the three liberals said they would have pushed back against the administration even more.
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The recent Supreme Court decisions did sometimes rebuke the administration.
The Thursday order in the case of the Maryland father, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, rejected the Trump’s administration’s argument that it couldn’t be ordered to facilitate Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador because he is now under the control of a foreign government. The court said Trump officials needed to both facilitate Garcia’s release from that custody and ensure his case is handled “as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
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The April 7 order on Trump’s deportations under the 18th-century law, the Alien Enemies Act, ruled the lawsuit at issue was improperly brought and granted Trump’s request to be freed from two temporary restraining orders. But the court also provided potential deportees with an alternative route to bring new lawsuits and said they must be given “reasonable time” to do so.
But even those partial losses for Trump officials came with silver linings.
While the Alien Enemies Act ruling, for instance, allows the potential deportees to bring lawsuits, it forces them to do so in Texas, which falls under the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That could mean Trump gets more favorable legal treatment.
In addition, the ruling forces the potential deportees to bring a type of lawsuit – known as a “habeas petition” – that makes it harder for them to get judicial orders that protect everyone in their position, not just themselves, according to Stephen Vladeck, a Georgetown University law professor.
The Supreme Court’s ruling ignores “how much the Trump administration is attempting to use the Alien (Enemies) Act systemically—for mass, summary removals” of alleged unauthorized immigrants, Vladeck wrote in his weekly newsletter about the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court also sided with Trump over his firing of 16,000 federal workers based on a technicality: The court said nine nonprofits that sued over Trump’s actions didn’t have “standing,” a legal term for being injured in the right way in order to bring a case.
“The Supreme Court is saying the courts cannot disregard legal detail” when it comes to how and where lawsuits are brought, and to the limits on what courts can do to address potential illegality, McConnell said.
Decisions come after Trump tells the Supreme Court to ‘fix’ lower courts
The decisions come as the Trump administration’s relationship with judges has quickly become strained.
On March 18, Trump posted on Truth Social that Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who issued the two temporary restraining orders to block Trump’s Alien Enemies Act deportations, should be impeached, along with many other “Crooked Judges.”
That prompted a rare public rebuke the same day from Chief Justice John Roberts, who said impeaching judges “is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
Two days later, Trump suggested Roberts and his fellow justices needed to address Trump’s struggles as a result of court orders pumping the breaks on his policies.
“If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY, our Country is in very serious trouble!” he said.
This week, Trump sounded more hopeful after the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Alien Enemies Act case.
“The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself,” Trump posted on Truth Social Monday. “A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!”