We Are Not at War with Venezuela

Yesterday (Monday, April 7) the Supreme Court made two "decisions" on Trump administration illegalities that are very hard to tell apart. Both are about men renditioned to a Salvadoran torture prison. One is the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father who the government admits they sent there by mistake under some kind of regular deportation rules. The other is about 176 other men who the government sent to El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, claiming we are in a state of war with Venezuela and the men — as supposed gang members — are agents of that enemy government.

Chief Justice John Roberts delayed Abrego Garcia's immediate release until Wednesday. So not really a decision — just a delay on the obviously correct order of an appellate court from last week that he should be returned to the U.S. But who knows how the full court will rule....

...because on the same day, Roberts (along with four other justices; guess which ones) also ruled that the administration doesn't have to send back the 176 men it flew out of the U.S. with no due process rights. The five-member majority overruled a temporary restraining order by James Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who has been hearing the case.

The court majority tried to provide a fig leaf of process in their ruling, saying detained people could file a habeas corpus claim before they are detained. But that doesn't help the renditioned men down in El Salvador, who are cut off from legal counsel, and will not help the vast majority of people in the future who the government will grab who don't know their "rights" and don't have access to a lawyer. If there even are lawyers left who are willing to defy a government bent on intimidating attorneys from pursuing justice.

The dissenting opinion was scathing, of course, pointing out the obvious legal problems in the government's case.

The decisions came just after a Sixty Minutes report that more than 75% of the men renditioned to El Salvador had no criminal records at all, and almost all of the other 25% had nothing violent in their records. And — of course — even if they did have records, they should still be accorded due process on the specifics at this point. It's just adding insult to injury.

This 5–4 decision was done on the shadow docket, not argued in open court. Which has its own set of negative consequences.

Here's some of the BlueSky response, in chronological order, starting from just before the AEA decision, and running through today when White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the Trump administration is working on deporting U.S. citizens to El Salvador.

Everything below the line is quoted from the attributed account.

__

If SCOTUS decides in Trump's favor, we are in Argentina's "Dirty War" territory, where the Argentinian junta at the time disappeared thousands of citizens, and even threw some opponents out of planes at 10,000 feet.
Andrew M_Founder @andrewmceo.bsky.social

I know I'm not the only person doing this, but I pulled up the Declaration of Independence and these are stirring words of grievance...


Brian F. Kelcey @stateofthecity.bsky.social

roberts et al have divined the Actual Intent of the constitution, which is to allow the government to exercise nearly unaccountable power to strip people of their rights. it is why we fought the revolution!
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

A reminder that if the government can send migrants to a prison camp without any due process, it can send U.S. citizens there, too. I know because this happened to me and my family in 1942.
George Takei

I'm not a lawyer but if I follow this correctly, an additional burden is that habeus has to be filed in the jurisdiction where the person has been whisked off to, correct? It is offensively ridiculous to think that any but a handful of people disappeared by ICE will be able to file habeas corpus, because it relies on them having informed families with connections to available knowledgeable lawyers with time and resources to act instantly.
Soaring Eagle Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social

So even if you did have a good local legal network wherever you lived, you need to suddenly find one elsewhere in the country? And second — again, as a non-lawyer — but since this was a shadow docket ruling, that means one of the parties was claiming irreparable harm, and in this case, it was the US government claiming it would be irreparably harmed if they weren't allowed to detain people at will? Is that the right read?
JEEMS, dog servant @jamesfrye.bsky.social

This may sound silly and have no effect but please remember: As soon as you are detained. Demand to be brought before a judge without delay. State that you are your lawyer until better representation is available and you would like to file a habeas corpus.
August in the Garden @veritashortus.bsky.social

Reminder: We are not at war with Venezuela. The people deported are not enemies. The law in question should not apply. Among the most dangerous aspects of the SCOTUS ruling is the idea that the president and his people have the right to arbitrarily determine who our enemies are.
David Rothkopf @djrothkopf.bsky.social

This Court considered it an egregious abuse of executive power for Biden to modify student loan payments based on a statute authorizing the executive branch to "waive or modify" student loan payments
Scott Lemieux @lemieuxlgm.bsky.social

It’s not deporting, if you’re sending citizens to another country. It’s human trafficking. In this case, it’s also slave labor. You’re talking about an administration selling US citizens into slave labor.
Alex A. Pagliuca