Toward the end of this video interview, Harry and I preview important stories next week. Check out the editor’s note at the end of this article for more on our special coverage.
The Supreme Court today gave the Trump administration the green light to send eight immigrants to South Sudan, a war-torn and human rights abusing country that most are not from.
“What the Government wants to do, concretely, is send the eight noncitizens it illegally removed from the United States from Djibouti to South Sudan, where they will be turned over to the local authorities without regard for the likelihood that they will face torture or death,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.
A little more than a week ago, the Supreme Court broadly authorized the Trump administration to send immigrants to random countries without notice or a hearing, pausing a federal judge’s ruling that blocked that conduct as unconstitutional. The conservative justices gave no explanation for the decision.
Immediately after, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy said that the Supreme Court’s ruling did not affect his separate ruling barring the flight to South Sudan. The Trump administration immediately returned to the Supreme Court seeking a “clarification” of its earlier order.
Murphy’s order blocking the flight to South Sudan enforced his earlier ruling that the Supreme Court had paused.
Seven justices ultimately agreed that Murphy’s actions defied the Supreme Court’s initial order, with Elena Kagan joining the conservatives.
“I continue to believe that this court should not have stayed the district court’s April 18 order enjoining the government from deporting non-citizens to third countries without notice or a meaningful opportunity to be heard,” Kagan wrote. “But a majority of this court saw things differently, and I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this court has stayed.”
In their dissent, Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown-Jackson roasts the majority for excusing the Trump administration’s “undisguised contempt for the judiciary” and “lawlessness,” while providing no guidance for what power, “if any,” federal judges have to stop those abuses.
“Today’s order clarifies only one thing: Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the Supreme Court on speed dial,” Sotomayor wrote.
In our latest Substack Live, former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman and I unpack the Supreme Court’s decision and give a preview of important cases coming up next week.
Read the Supreme Court’s order here.
Editor’s Note:
Toward the end of our conversation, Harry and I discussed some of my travel itinerary for next week.
On Monday, I will be heading to a federal court in Maryland to learn whether a judge will block the government from deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia and allow him to remain in that state before his criminal trial. After losing their attempt to keep him detained before trial, Trump’s Justice Department said that immigration authorities will detain Abrego if he’s released.
On Thursday, a federal judge in New Hampshire will be the first to determine whether Trump’s birthright citizenship ban could be blocked nationwide through a class action lawsuit in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. CASA, curbing the use of universal injunctions.
There’s a reason that I’ll be driving some 700 miles to cover these two stories: These courtroom proceedings will test the outer limits of Trump’s power.
After unsuccessfully trying to spirit a man to a foreign prison permanently, can the Trump administration try to retroactively justify that decision by charging him criminally — and then deprive him of a defense by deporting him after losing in court?
Can Trump rewrite a constitutional amendment through an executive order, knowing that a weakened judiciary will be powerless to stop him from doing so, except in piecemeal?
These are questions of historic weight that will unfold in courtrooms where there are no cameras, only reporters and the public sitting in the gallery.
Despite our jokes in the interview about George Clooney’s “Up in the Air,” these road assignments aren’t glamorous, but they’re central to the editorial mission of All Rise News because these courtrooms are where our future rights and freedoms in the United States will be decided. There’s no substitute for live court coverage, and your support makes it happen.
If you value it, and you want it to continue, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Share this post