SCOTUS wartime powers ruling

The Supreme Court said the Trump administration can keep using the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Tren de Aragua members, but only if detainees get notice and time to challenge removal in court. (supremecourt.gov) In a 5-4 order on April 7, 2025, the court threw out temporary restraining orders issued by United States District Judge James Boasberg in Washington. The majority said challenges to removals under the 1798 law must be brought through habeas corpus, the legal process used to contest detention. (supremecourt.gov) The case grew out of President Donald Trump’s March 14, 2025 proclamation, No. 10903, which declared that Tren de Aragua was carrying out an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” and made Venezuelan nationals age 14 or older who were deemed members removable under the statute. The proclamation was published in the Federal Register on March 20, 2025. (federalregister.gov) The Alien Enemies Act dates to 1798 and allows a president to detain or remove citizens of a hostile foreign nation during a declared war, invasion, or threatened predatory incursion. A Congressional Research Service analysis said presidents had previously invoked it only during the War of 1812, World War One, and World War Two before the 2025 proclamation. (congress.gov) The Supreme Court did not decide whether Trump’s use of the law against a gang was lawful on the merits. It said only that the detainees had filed in the wrong procedural posture and that any challenge had to be brought where they were confined, not through a class-wide suit in Washington. (supremecourt.gov) Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing in dissent, said the government appeared to be rushing people out of the country before courts could determine whether the law applied to them or whether they were actually members of Tren de Aragua. The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the case, has argued that the law cannot be used this way because the United States is not at war with Venezuela and immigration law already provides the removal process. (supremecourt.gov; aclu.org) The administration’s position rested in part on a separate February 2025 move by the State Department, which designated Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group. Trump’s proclamation then tied that designation to the Alien Enemies Act. (state.gov; federalregister.gov) A year later, on April 14, 2026, a divided United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit blocked Boasberg from continuing criminal contempt proceedings over the March 2025 flights to El Salvador. Judge Neomi Rao, joined by Judge Justin Walker, said the inquiry was a “clear abuse of discretion” because it sought testimony about executive branch decisions involving national security and diplomacy. (usnews.com; cbsnews.com) That contempt fight centered on Boasberg’s oral order on March 15, 2025 directing officials to stop or turn around deportation flights carrying Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador. Boasberg later found probable cause for criminal contempt after concluding the government had not complied. (cbsnews.com; politico.com) The appeals court ruling did not end the broader legal battle over the Alien Enemies Act itself. It left the administration with the Supreme Court’s procedural win and left challengers to keep pressing individual habeas cases over who can be deported under a wartime law written in 1798. (supremecourt.gov; aclu.org)