The Dictatorship
Supreme Court splits 5-4 to grant Trump emergency relief in Alien Enemies Act deportation litigation
A divided Supreme Court vacated temporary restraining orders issued by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that had halted certain deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. The court split 5-4, with Republican appointees in the majority and Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett dissenting alongside the court’s three Democratic appointees.
The majority framed the matter as a mere procedural disagreement, but dissenting justices cited loftier issues at play, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor highlighting potential “life or death consequences.”
In an unsigned “per curiam” ruling for the court, the majority said detainees must bring their challenges in habeas corpus proceedings and must do so where they are confined. “The detainees are confined in Texas, so venue is improper in the District of Columbia,” the majority said.
The majority also said detainees under the act “must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act. 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 majority emphasized that it wasn’t ruling on the government’s interpretation of the act itself.
The American Civil Liberties Union’s Lee Gelernt, who was counsel of record at the Supreme Court for the plaintiffs who brought the case, emphasized the due process aspect of the ruling. “The critical point of this ruling is that the Supreme Court said individuals must be given due process to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act. That is an important victory,” he said.
Writing a dissent joined by the two other Democratic appointees and partly by Barrett, Sotomayor called the majority’s legal conclusion “suspect.” She said the court granted the government “extraordinary relief” without mentioning “the grave harm Plaintiffs will face if they are erroneously removed to El Salvador or regard for the Government’s attempts to subvert the judicial process throughout this litigation.”
The majority chided the dissenters’ “rhetoric” and said it agrees the detainees are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal and that “the only question is which court will resolve that challenge.” Similarly, Justice Brett Kavanaugh (who was in the majority) added a concurring opinion to emphasize that “all nine Members of the Court agree that judicial review is available. The only question is where that judicial review should occur.”
But on the prospect of life-or-death stakes, Sotomayor wrote, “Individuals who are unable to secure counsel, or who cannot timely appeal an adverse judgment rendered by a habeas court, face the prospect of removal directly into the perilous conditions of El Salvador’s CECOT, where detainees suffer egregious human rights abuses.” She raised the concern of people being mistakenly deported and then the government not trying to get them back, which is at issue in another case pending before the justices.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson added her own dissent to lament the majority’s actions in the case, in which, as she put it, President Donald Trump “has invoked a centuries-old wartime statute to whisk people away to a notoriously brutal, foreign-run prison. For lovers of liberty, this should be quite concerning.”
The Trump administration sought high court intervention in litigation over the 1798 law, which Trump invoked to summarily deport alleged Venezuelan gang members on flights to El Salvador. The law has been invoked just three previous times in the nation’s history, all during declared wars.
On March 15, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued temporary restraining orders to halt certain deportations under the act pending further litigation. A divided federal appellate panel in Washington, D.C., declined to halt Boasberg’s orders, and the government appealed to the justices.
“This case presents fundamental questions about who decides how to conduct sensitive national-security-related operations in this country — the President, through Article II, or the Judiciary, through TROs,” the administration wrote, referring to temporary restraining orders. “The Constitution supplies a clear answer: the President. The republic cannot afford a different choice,” it said in the March 28 application to Chief Justice John Robertswho handles emergency litigation from Washington, D.C.
Opposing the government’s application, the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit argued that the administration isn’t entitled to emergency relief.
Opposing the government’s application, the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit argued that the administration isn’t entitled to emergency relief. They noted that the government can still remove people under other legal authorities besides the Alien Enemies Act. And they said that without Boasberg’s temporary orders in place, the plaintiffs “will suffer extraordinary and irreparable harms — being sent out of the United States to a notorious Salvadoran prison, where they will remain incommunicado, potentially for the rest of their lives, without having had any opportunity to contest their designation as gang members.”
Boasberg has separately been examining whether Trump officials violated his orders. The government has questioned the Obama-appointed judge’s authority and has maintained that it technically didn’t violate his orders in any event. But the plaintiffs said officials clearly violated his orders when they didn’t even attempt to return individuals on planes, despite Boasberg’s unambiguous directive to do so and having the ability to do so. The judge is poised to rule on the matter in the coming days after a hearing last week at which he had a hard time getting answers from the government about its compliance with his orders.
The government’s citation of national security concerns comes amid the “Signalgate” scandal, in which top officials mistakenly disclosed sensitive military informationas well as the government’s admission in another case that it made an “administrative error” in removing an individual to a Salvadoran prison who wasn’t supposed to be sent there, which Sotomayor cited in her dissent.
Subscribe to theDeadline: Legal Newsletterfor expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined BLN, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
In an explosive interview with NBC aired Sunday, President Donald Trump cut the grilling short and left the set after peppering “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker with insults.
“You’re either crooked or you’re stupid,” Trump told Welker, who kept a cool demeanor despite the president’s barrage of disparaging slurs.
Moments before he attacked her, Trump — without providing any evidence — said he believes elections in the U.S. are rigged. Then he lambasted television news networks, singling out NBC, CBS and ABC.
“They’re crooked just like you’re crooked, your press is crooked. And ‘Meet the Press’ is crooked,” Trump said.
“To be fair, I’m not crooked,” Welker shot back. “But let’s continue.”
“Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough,” the president told Welker, who is the second woman and first Black journalist to helm the network’s flagship program.
Trump added, “Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”
It was not the first time Trump has berated a female journalist on the job covering his presidency.
In November 2025, he told Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey to stop talking, saying, “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.” One month later, he told ABC’s Rachel Scott she was “the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place.” Last month, he called MS NOW White House reporter Akayla Gardner “a dumb person” for pointing out that the cost of his White House ballroom project had doubled since it was first announced.
He has also repeatedly lashed out at CNN’s Kaitlan Collinscriticizing her for not smiling enough.
The wide-ranging interview, which was taped last week on a farm in Wisconsin, was interrupted by the loud sound of heavy rain on the metal roof of the barn where they met. Welker questioned Trump on his war with Iran, his “anti-weaponization” fund and the upcoming midterm elections.
On his nearly $1.8 billion fund aimed at compensating people who say they were wrongly prosecuted, including Jan. 6 Capitol rioters, Trump said “people were destroyed by dirty cops and by weaponization. Many of those people should be compensated.”
He described the people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as people who were “being ushered into the building” by law enforcement.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the fund last month and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said last week the administration would not be moving forward with the fundwhich faced bipartisan backlash.
When asked if the administration would pursue other avenues to revive it, Trump said he does not know what will ultimately happen and called Welker and her network “the fake dirty press.”
Despite campaigning on a promise to end foreign wars, Trump denied that he made such statements. He characterized the Iran war, launched by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28, as necessary to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
When asked about the rising cost of living as a result of the war, specifically gas and fertilizer, Trump chastised Welker.
“Are you ready? Am I allowed to talk? You keep asking questions and you don’t listen to the answers,” he said.
“I love the farmers and the farmers love me,” Trump said, adding that prices will come down after the war.
Welker suggested to her viewers Sunday that she and the president had a cordial conversation Saturday, saying they both “acknowledged the complications” posed by the rain. “He agreed to sit down with me for another ‘Meet the Press’ interview,” she said.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
Iran said visas were denied to key members of its national soccer team ahead of the World Cupwhich a U.S. official insisted was necessary so that Iran does not try to “sneak terrorists into the United States.”
In a post on Xthe Iranian embassy in Turkey said “visas were denied to a large portion of the managerial and executive staff, technical advisers, and others” on its team.
“You have now escalated the deliberate and discriminatory treatment against Iran’s national football team to its highest level,” the embassy said, accusing the U.S. of the “worst possible form of politically biased interference in sport” and “depriving Iran’s national team of its right to play in the World Cup under normal conditions.”
Iranian officials are accusing the U.S. government of violating FIFA regulations and breaching its obligations as one of the host countries of what is widely regarded to be the biggest sporting event in the world. The diplomatic standoff between the two countries comes just days before the World Cup is set to kick off and more than three months after the U.S. and Israel waged war against Iran.
A Trump administration official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the subject told MS NOW in a statement that the visas “necessary for Iran to compete in the World Cup, including for athletes and necessary support staff, have been issued.”
The official added, however, “We will not allow the Iranian team to abuse this system to sneak terrorists into the United States under false pretenses.”
The statement from the Iranian Embassy in Turkey came in response to a post on X by U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack praising embassy staff for processing visas for the Iranian national team.
According to The Associated Presssome of the team’s officials have not received visas to enter the U.S., which is co-hosting the World Cup with Mexico and Canada. Games are set to begin Thursday.
Problems with getting U.S. visas had already led Iran to move its World Cup training base from the U.S. to Mexico. But Iran is still listed on the official World Cup schedule to play its first two games in Los Angeles on June 15 against New Zealand, and against Belgium six days later before heading to Seattle to face Egypt.
The Iran Football Federation’s secretary-general and its vice president were among 14 staff and officials without U.S. visas, AP said, citing Iranian state television. The federation reportedly accused the U.S. of “vindictive behavior.”
Emily Hung contributed to this report.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
A shooting near a community festival in Toledo, Ohio, wounded at least 12 people, and police said a search for the suspects was ongoing following an outbreak of gunfire that sent crowds scrambling for cover.
Two of the wounded were in critical condition, Toledo Deputy Police Chief Joe Heffernan said. He said it appeared there were at least two people firing weapons who were “probably shooting at each other.”
The Toledo Police Department said the shooting happened near the Old West End Festival, an annual gathering of live music and home tours in a historic district of the city.
The department said an active search was underway for those responsible.
“I am deeply concerned about the situation in Toledo tonight. Summer festivals should be safe spaces for families to spend time together without fear of violence,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement.
Multiple videos posted to social media showed people running over the sound of gunshots and emergency officials tending to others who appeared wounded.
Kevin Berry said he was sitting in the neighborhood arboretum listening to live music with his friends when he heard a handful of gunshots ring out.
“Everybody hit the deck,” he said.
When he looked back up, he saw a gun being tossed to the ground less than 50 feet (15 meters) away from him. Police officers who were already on-site for the festival immediately responded to the scene.
Berry, who has medical training and served in the U.S. Navy, said he walked around the area looking for potential victims who might need help.
He said he saw at least five people with gunshot wounds.
“The folks who were hit were spread out around the arboretum area,” he said.
The Old West End Festival is a two-day celebration in Toledo’s historic district that includes live music, food vendors, home tours and shopping.
Berry described it as the “kick-off to Toledo’s summer festival season.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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