The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for President Donald Trump to resume deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime-era statute not invoked in over seven decades, handing the administration a temporary but consequential victory amid mounting legal challenges and accusations of executive overreach.
In a 5-4 decision, the court vacated a federal judge's restraining order that had blocked deportations of Venezuelan nationals allegedly linked to the Tren de Aragua gang. The ruling allows the Trump administration to continue using the 1798 law to carry out removals, provided that detainees are given sufficient notice and time to challenge their detention in the proper federal court.
"AEA detainees must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act," the court wrote in its unsigned majority opinion. "The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs."
The Alien Enemies Act has historically been used only during declared wars-the War of 1812, World Wars I and II. Trump's invocation of the law marked a dramatic expansion of its scope, claiming that mass infiltration by alleged Venezuelan gang members constituted an "invasion or predatory incursion" as defined in the statute.
The administration began applying the law in February, following its designation of Tren de Aragua as a terrorist group with ties to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. According to administration officials, over 200 Venezuelan nationals were flown to El Salvador aboard three chartered planes and placed in a maximum-security prison.
Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the court's decision on X, writing: "An activist judge in Washington, DC does not have the jurisdiction to seize control of President Trump's authority to conduct foreign policy and keep the American people safe." Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem added, "Today's SCOTUS ruling is a victory for commonsense security."
Trump, in a Truth Social post, praised the ruling as a vindication of executive authority: "The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself."
The decision reverses orders issued by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who had temporarily blocked deportations pending a hearing. The original lawsuit, brought by five Venezuelans, was provisionally certified as a class action covering all non-citizen Venezuelans in U.S. custody. Boasberg had set a hearing for Tuesday to consider a preliminary injunction and was also weighing whether to hold Trump officials in contempt for allowing deportation flights in violation of his order.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented sharply, stating: "The Government's conduct in this litigation poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law. We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than this." She accused the administration of "stonewalling" Boasberg's efforts to determine whether its actions had violated his directives.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a separate dissent, warned that the court was increasingly issuing major rulings through its emergency docket. "At least when the Court went off base in the past, it left a record so posterity could see how it went wrong," she wrote, invoking the Court's infamous Korematsu decision that allowed the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, although joining the majority in part, sided with liberal justices on concerns that habeas corpus might not be the only appropriate mechanism for challenging removal under the Alien Enemies Act.
The administration's method for identifying suspected gang members has drawn criticism. Attorneys for the plaintiffs argue that the points-based system-relying on factors such as tattoos or geographic origin-lacks reliability and risks ensnaring innocent individuals. In one high-profile incident, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father, was mistakenly deported due to what officials called an "administrative error."
Lee Gelernt, lead attorney for the ACLU, called the decision a partial victory. "We are disappointed that we will need to start the court process over again in a different venue, but the critical point is that the Court rejected the government's remarkable position that it does not even have to give individuals meaningful advance notice to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act," he said in a statement.
Boasberg's ruling did not prohibit deportations under other legal authorities, and the administration has continued some removals accordingly. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld Boasberg's temporary restraining order in a 2-1 decision last month, with Judge Karen Henderson writing that the term "invasion" was understood by the framers to be military in nature.
"This case presents fundamental questions about who decides how to conduct sensitive national-security-related operations in this country," Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in her emergency appeal to the high court. "The Constitution supplies a clear answer: the president."
