President Donald Trump’s ambitious immigration agenda is causing a dramatic shakeup among justices on the United States Supreme Court.
The high court’s conservative justices are split over Trump’s deportations.
In a shocking rebuke of Trump, the Supreme Court issued a ruling just after midnight Saturday.
The ruling blocks the president from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport illegal alien gang members detained in northern Texas.
Only two justices, neither of them appointed by Trump himself, voiced concern about the court’s move.
In a fiery dissent, Samuel Alito, joined by Clarence Thomas, said the court issued a hasty and premature ruling without clear jurisdiction.
“When this Court rushed to enter its order, the Court of Appeals was considering the issue of emergency relief, and we were informed that a decision would be forthcoming,” Alito wrote.
“This Court, however, refused to wait.”
Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport dangerous gang members has led to a dramatic standoff between the judiciary and the executive branch.
The president’s critics, including the Democrat-aligned activist federal judges blocking his moves, have accused Trump of ignoring court rulings and suspending due process.
Meanwhile, Trump and his supporters say activist judges are doing the Democrats’ dirty work by trying to thwart the president’s electoral mandate to deport illegal aliens.
Prior to Saturday’s midnight ruling, the Supreme Court had allowed Trump to continue using the Alien Enemies Act to carry out deportations.
However, the Court ordered the government to provide “reasonable time” to contest them.
The Supreme Court’s midnight intervention came after the left-wing American Civil Liberties Union scrambled to file challenges in Texas, Louisiana, and Washington, D.C., all in a matter of hours on Good Friday.
Alito’s dissent noted that the Supreme Court did not wait to hear the Trump administration’s side of the story.
Instead, the SCOTUS relied on “dubious” evidence that a group of Venezuelans being detained in Texas would be imminently deported.
“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,” he wrote.
“I refused to join the Court’s order because we had no good reason to think that, under the circumstances, issuing an order atm midnight was necessary or appropriate,” he added.
In his dissent, Alito concluded:
“Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law.”
READ MORE – Democrat Claims Deported Illegal Alien MS-13 Gang Members Were ‘Abducted’ by Trump
