SCOTUS GRABS POTUS BY THE ….. – DUE PROCESS: If you remove due process from American life, the entire 250 year old social experiment will collapse, never to be resurrected. America stands at a crossroads, the choice they make next will have enormous consequences for democracy and the rule of law. Turn too far right, and only unrestrained might will be able to quell the inevitable uprising.
– Supreme Court BLOCKS migrant deportations as Trump pushes presidential powers to the brink. The Supreme Court has temporarily blocked Donald Trump from deporting alleged Venezuelan gangsters being held in Texas. In a brief order made in the early hours of Saturday, the court directed the Trump administration not to remove the Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet Detention Center ‘until further order of this court.’
Two conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented. The high court acted in an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) contending that immigration authorities appeared to be moving to restart removals under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
The Supreme Court said earlier this month that deportations could proceed only if those about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and were given ‘a reasonable time’ to contest their pending removals. The last-minute order came as the alleged thugs were recently moved to the detention center in Anson, around 200 miles north of the Mexico border, sparking panic from their lawyers.
Trump is trying to deport the alleged gangsters under the 18th century Alien Enemies Act which allows the president to deport enemies in times of war. It has only been used a few times in history and was last wielded against Japanese prisoners in WWII.
The Supreme Court’s early hours order is the latest setback for Trump who was cautioned by Chief Justice John Roberts in a highly unusual intervention last month. Roberts, a conservative, warned Trump against threatening judges with impeachment after the president launched public attacks against James Boasberg.
Judge Boasberg had ordered halts on deportation flights of Venezuelans bound for El Salvador. The latest dispute centers on dozens of Venezuelans held in Texas. Lawyers for the ACLU filed urgent requests on Friday in multiple courts, including the Supreme Court, urging immediate action after reporting that some of the men had already been loaded onto buses and were told they were to be deported.
The ACLU said the rapid developments were not affording the men a realistic opportunity to contest their removal as the Supreme Court had required. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
WELL, YOU WERE LUCKY! Extraordinary footage has emerged showing busloads of Venezuelan detainees in the process of being deported before a stunning Supreme Court intervention. The buses, loaded with at least 28 migrants, were heading from ICE’s Bluebonnet Detention Center to Abilene Airport on Friday, according to NBC.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement buses were closely followed by a motorcade of 18 squad cars from varying law enforcement agencies.
The detainees – primarily Venezuelan – were driven back to the detention center after a bombshell Supreme Court ruling.
Justice Samuel Alito, one of the nation’s top ranking legal authorities, has since issued a fiery dissent to the decision – which forced the Trump administration to temporarily halt the deportation of any Venezuelans held in a northern Texas detention facility under an 18th-century wartime law.
In his written ruling, Alito cited a government lawyer who insisted the administration had no intention of deporting anyone on Good Friday or Easter Saturday.
Judy Maldonado Rall, whose husband was reportedly on the bus at the time, said her husband was told by a guard he was headed toward the hellhole El Salvadorian prison where Trump has previously sent more than 200 suspected gang members.
She said after the buses were turned around, a guard told her husband: ‘Well, you were lucky you were sent back because you were going to El Salvador, not Venezuela.’ – By BRITTANY CHAIN and JAMES CIRRONE for DM – 21 April, 19 April 2025.
7-2 with only Alito and Thomas dissenting, the two most radical conservative Catholic Judges on the SC. It is interesting to ponder on the visit of JD Vance to the Vatican over Easter, and Pope Francis’ strong rebuke of Trump’s immigrantion policies. They did not know it at the time of making the ruling, but the Pope died on Easter Monday, less than 24 hours after doing the Jubilee Easter Blessing. He would have been proud of them, as 5 of the 7 are Catholic, and only 2 Catholic’s dissented.
UPDATE 22/4: NO DUE PROCESS: Donald Trump said that he must remove criminal migrants from the United States because it will take ‘200 years’ for everyone to get a fair trial. The president has been furious at the court for months as they attempt to overrule his plans for mass deportations.
Barack Obama-appointed District Judge James Boasberg has gone as far as threatening administration members with criminal prosecution for contempt of court. The GOP-controlled Congress has attempted to fight back, passing a measure in the House that restricts federal district courts from issuing nationwide injunctions.
Trump spoke his peace on the issue on his Truth Social account Monday evening.
‘I’m doing what I was elected to do, remove criminals from our Country, but the Courts don’t seem to want me to do that,’ he said.
Trump complimented his administration for doing ‘an incredible job’ to achieve his goals but complained of the Supreme Court stopping him ‘at every turn.’ He said they don’t want him ‘to send violent criminals and terrorists back to Venezuela, or any other Country, for that matter — People that came here illegally!’
Trump claimed that conservative Justice Samuel Alito is on his side, hoping to ‘dissolve the pause on deportations.’ However, he argued that the remainder of the Supreme Court and lower courts ‘are intimidated by the Radical Left’ whom he accuses of ‘playing the Ref’ or trying to cheat.
He then said that he simply has to do immediate deportations because of the amount of time it was take to do it through the courts.
‘We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years. We would need hundreds of thousands of trials for the hundreds of thousands of Illegals we are sending out of the Country,’ Trump wrote. The president called the entire situation ‘ridiculous’ and ended on his longtime call of ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’
‘If we don’t get these criminals out of our Country, we are not going to have a Country any longer,’ he added.
NO ROGUE RULINGS: Nationwide injunctions granted by federal district judges that impact all Americans may soon be a vestige of the past after a Republicans pushed through a bill to help the Trump administration.
The House passed the ‘No Rogue Rulings Act’ two weeks ago. The bill now heads to the Republican-Senate, which is expected to pass the measure.
The bill restricts federal district courts from issuing nationwide injunctions, except in certain instances, and is aimed to curtail judicial blocks on the Trump administration’s agenda.
‘These rogue judge rulings are a new resistance to the Trump administration and the only time in which judges in robes in this number have felt it necessary to participate in the political process,’ the bill’s author, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said.
‘The federal judiciary isn’t interpreting the law. It is impeding the presidency. It is, in fact, not co-equal, but holding itself to be superior.’
It was a top priority for Republicans in Congress as they claim ‘rouge’ judges were improperly curtailing presidential authority.
‘We’re going to prevent activist judges from issuing these unconstitutional nationwide injunctions and legislating to the bench, which has become a real problem,’ Speaker Mike Johnson said.
Trump has been frustrated by judges across the country from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco for ruling against his deportation and DOGE orders. The president even took the unprecedented step of calling for one judge’s removal. – By STEPHEN M. LEPORE for DM.
Apr 21, 2025 1:15:50 pm
