2 months ago
6
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.
Donald Trump won the presidency in part on promises to deport undocumented immigrants with criminal records. But his earliest executive orders—trying to undo birthright citizenship, suspending critical refugee programs—made clear he wants to attack legal immigrants, too. In our new series, Who Gets to Be American This Week?, we’ll track the Trump administration’s attempts to exclude an ever-growing number of people from the American experiment.
The legal system dealt some blows to the immigrants caught up in the president’s mass deportation agenda this week. The Supreme Court kicked things off by weighing in on the extreme methods Trump is using to carry out his immigration agenda—and it once again decided to give him a pass for lawlessness.
Here’s the immigration news we’re keeping an eye on this week:
Border Officials Want to Treat Immigration Like an Amazon Purchase
The annual Border Security Expo took place in Phoenix this week and multiple U.S. border officials made appearances, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem became the first sitting secretary to attend. At the event, acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons said he wants immigration enforcement to become more like a business—“like [Amazon] Prime,” he said, “but with human beings.”
Lyons was joined by “border czar” Tom Homan, Deputy Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection John Modlin, and other administration officials. They gathered for “the largest and longest-standing event of its kind “ where federal, state, and local law enforcement network with private industry to access new technology for immigration enforcement.
According to the Arizona Mirror, Homan indicated the Trump administration is interested in leaning on the private sector to achieve its mass deportation goals, telling attendees during his keynote speech, “We need to buy more beds, we need more airplane flights, and I know a lot of you are here for that reason.” The U.S. is already paying El Salvador President Nayib Bukele $6 million to imprison immigrants deported from the U.S. for one year.
Homan, Lyons, and Noem all supported the president’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, while Homan went so far as to suggest it “bothers him” that judges have stopped immigration officials from using it, a reference to the restraining orders the president’s executive order has faced. During her speech, Noem promised to take the current mass deportation plans and put them “on steroids.”
The Supreme Court Gave Trump Another Shot at Deporting Immigrants to El Salvador
The high court paved the way for Trump to try to deport more migrants under the Alien Enemies Act, a 200-year-old law intended to be used only in wartime.
In a 5–4 decision, the court lifted U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s restraining order that had halted the president’s mass deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s mega-prison since March 15. Boasberg also certified a class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration, both decisions that an appeals court upheld. The DOJ, after defying Boasberg’s restraining order, appealed up to the Supreme Court. On Monday evening, it delivered the answer that the Trump administration sought.
The majority conceded that migrants are owed due process, so now the Trump administration must give anyone being targeted through the Alien Enemies Act notice that they are subject to deportation under the law. These notices have to be given before they’re deported, so they have a real opportunity to file for habeas relief and challenge the legality of their deportations. However, the Supreme Court did not address what legal recourse is available for the hundreds of people who have already been unlawfully deported and are currently sitting in prison in El Salvador.
Migrants currently being detained in the U.S. under the Alien Enemies Act have to file their habeas corpus petitions where they are being confined, the majority ruled. That happens to be mainly in Texas, where the judiciary is not just small-c conservative—it’s the jurisdiction of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, considered the most far-right court in the country. However, two days after the court issued its decision, a Trump-appointed judge in Texas responded to a habeas petition and issued a new restraining order. Now, ICE cannot deport any Venezuelan citizen who is currently being detained at the El Valle Detention Facility in Raymondville, Texas, under the Alien Enemies Act.
“A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!” Trump crowed on Truth Social. Meanwhile, just this week CBS’ 60 Minutes found that of the 238 migrants the DOJ deported to El Salvador, 75 percent do not have criminal records in the U.S.
A Man Deported in “Error” Doesn’t Need to Be Brought Back to the U.S.— for Now
Also on Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay in the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who the Department of Justice admitted was deported to El Salvador in an “administrative error.” The decision pauses any further action on Abrego Garcia’s case, temporarily relieving the DOJ of having to bring him back home to the U.S.
Abrego Garcia was one of the hundreds of migrants sent to El Salvador in late March in a series of late-night flights. He filed suit against federal officials, stating that in 2019 he was given legal resident status that specifically protected him from being deported back to his native El Salvador, where he faces persecution by local gangs. He had been living in Maryland with his wife and children when he was arrested, taken to Texas, and deported to the very place he fled.
When U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis demanded the DOJ explain why it deported Abrego Garcia, the DOJ claimed it received allegations that he was a member of the Salvadoran gang MS-13’s New York clique—a state he has never lived in. Xinis ruled Abrego Garcia’s deportation was illegal and ordered the federal government to bring him back to the U.S. no later than 11:59 p.m. on Monday, April 7. (A veteran DOJ attorney admitted in court that even he did not know under what authority the government deported Abrego Garcia. The attorney general subsequently suspended him.)
You can probably fill in the blanks from here. The DOJ, unwilling to admit defeat nor be told what to do, went up to the Supreme Court and asked for an emergency appeal. The chief justice quickly complied, temporarily clearing Xinis’ court-ordered deadline and buying the full court time as it considers Abrego Garcia’s case. Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia continues to remain in El Salvador’s mega-prison with no relief in sight.
Tufts’ University Student Can Remain in Detention
U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III denied a request to release Rumeysa Ozturk from immigration detention because he’s not sure whether he has the jurisdiction to rule on her case. A Turkish national who was studying at Tufts University on a student visa, Ozturk was arrested on March 25 in Massachusetts. She was transferred to at least three separate detention facilities across three states, complicating the question of where her case should be heard.
The question of jurisdiction is an issue many judges considering these types of immigration cases will likely face. A New Jersey judge recently ruled he retains the authority to oversee Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil’s case because his habeas petition was filed in New Jersey while he was being detained there, even though Khalil has since been moved to a Louisiana detention facility.
In Ozturk’s case, Sessions ordered her lawyers and the DOJ to file briefs detailing where they believe her habeas petition should be heard and scheduled another hearing for April 14. Ozturk’s case is particularly chilling, as she was arrested by police officers dressed in plainclothes and taken away in an unmarked van. Ozturk, a Fulbright scholar, was pursuing a doctorate in child and human development at Tufts. The State Department had revoked her visa—without notifying her—days before she was arrested.
The Department of Homeland Security said Ozturk “engaged in support of Hamas,” without offering any evidence. Last year Ozturk co-wrote an op-ed, alongside three other students, criticizing Tufts’ response to the pro-Palestine movement on its campus. Her name is also on Canary Mission, an online database that collects the names of individuals and organizations it considers to “promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses and beyond.” Mahmoud Khalil, another pro-Palestine protester who was arrested, is also featured on Canary Mission.
The same night in late March when Ozturk was arrested, her attorney filed an emergency habeas petition in Boston court challenging her detention, but at that point she had been transferred out of state to Vermont. The following day she was flown to Louisiana and has been in detention there ever since.
A Boston judge transferred Ozturk’s case to Vermont after the DOJ argued she wasn’t in Massachusetts, where her petition was filed. Now, Sessions is also questioning whether Ozturk’s case should be heard in Vermont, but the federal government is expected to argue the case should be heard in Louisiana, where Ozturk is being detained—and which is under the jurisdiction of the Trump-friendly 5th Circuit.
Sign up for Slate’s evening newsletter.
English (US) ·