Alito Slams SCOTUS Colleagues On Deportation Block

The Associated Press reports:

The Supreme Court acted “literally in the middle of the night” and without sufficient explanation in blocking the Trump administration from deporting any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under an 18th-century wartime law, Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a sharp dissent that castigated the seven-member majority.

Joined by fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, Alito said there was “dubious factual support” for granting the request in an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union. The group contended that immigration authorities appeared to be moving to restart such removals under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

“Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law,” Alito said in the dissent released hours after the court’s intervention against Republican President Donald Trump’s administration.

The New York Times reports:

In his five-page dissent released on Saturday shortly before midnight, Justice Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote that in his view, the court’s decision to intervene overnight was not “necessary or appropriate.”

The order suggested a deep skepticism on the court about whether the Trump administration could be trusted to live up to the key part of an earlier ruling that said detainees were entitled to be notified if the government intended to deport them under the law, “within a reasonable time,” and in a way that would allow the deportees to challenge the move.

Justice Alito said that he had refused to join the court’s order because “we had no good reason to think that, under the circumstances, issuing an order at midnight was necessary or appropriate.”

The Times has a download of the full dissent.