The Supreme Court dealt Donald Trump another stinging defeat on Friday. But the real news is that Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas seem determined to side with the administration in almost any case.
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The US Supreme Court on Friday extended a temporary ban that prevents Donald Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members without due process.
The ruling should come as no major surprise to anybody who has ever read the Alien Enemies Act. In fact, one only has to read the first sentence of this 18th century law to recognize that it does not apply in this case.
Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies.
Obviously, there is no declared war between the United States and Venezuela, and the immigrants in question are not part of a government-sponsored invasion.
We know that because the US is not fighting back militarily and/or has not invoked Article 5 of the NATO charter, which is triggered when any member state is attacked.
And Trump is openly musing about invading Panama and Greenland, one because of its canal and the other because of its location and natural resources, so it seems as though Venezuela would be at the top of the list of targets if it were, in fact, in the process of invading the US.
Of course, what is really happening here is that Trump is following the authoritarian playbook by trying to grant himself wartime powers to circumvent the rule of law.
While Friday’s ruling did not address the merits of whether the president can invoke the Alien Enemies Act even if no war has been declared and the threshold for a foreign invasion has not been met, one would expect every member of the Supreme Court to figure that out and act accordingly.
After all, what would be the point of having a court if it cannot determine that there is currently no war between Venezuela and the United States?
If that were the case, the justices might as well write Trump a blank check and go home.
Clearly, that is what the president would prefer.
“THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!” he said in a social media post following the ruling.
Two of his staunchest supporters seem to agree.
In a dissent that is longer than the actual ruling, Associate Justice Samuel Alito explained why he thinks the ban should not have been extended. Predictably, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas agreed.
It seems as though the ethically challenged duo would like to just underwrite whatever illegal thing Trump is trying to do.
And, since the president is trying to do so many illegal things, that’s a real problem because it is fairly safe to assume that Alito and Thomas will side with the administration in every ruling of consequence.
That means that, essentially, those who favor upholding the rule of law have to hope that two of the four other conservative justices on the bench will put a stop to at least some of Trump’s lawless behavior.
On Friday, that is what happened.
However, not every ruling will be a no-brainer, and the justices will feel more and more pressure from Trump, so their job is not going to get easier.
However, among all of the institutions that have to hold the line against the president’s assault on the rule of law, the Supreme Court is perhaps the most important, which is why it is especially disheartening that Americans cannot count on two of the nine justices to do their jobs.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
