Supreme Court Rules Against Boasberg’s TRO in Alien Enemies Act Challenge
The Supreme Court has overturned Judge Boasberg’s TRO 5-4 regarding the Alien Enemies Act. In short, it says the action should have been brought in Texas and as individual habeas actions. Texas is the last state of confinement. The bright side, however, is that the Justices agreed 9-0 that each person subject to the AEA is entitled to judicial review and that should slow down the process and allow people a day in court. It also didn’t get to the issue of whether the AEA has been properly cited.
From Justice Sotomayor’s blistering dissent (supported by the other three women Justices): “Against the backdrop of the U. S. Government’s unprecedented deportation of dozens of immigrants to a foreign prison without due process, a majority of this Court sees fit to vacate the District Court’s order. The reason, apparently, is that the majority thinks plaintiffs’ claims should have been styled as habeas actions and filed in the districts of their detention. In reaching that result, the majority flouts well-established limits on its jurisdiction, creates new law on the emergency docket, and elides the serious threat our intervention poses to the lives of individual detainees.”
