Justice Alito Uses Scorching Dissent to Remind Colleagues They Have an Obligation ‘to Follow the Law’

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito unleashed a blazing dissent to the Court’s decision to insert itself into the deportation of Venezuelan Tren de Aragua thugs under the Alien Enemies Act; see Supreme Court Halts Deportations Under the Alien Enemies Act – RedState. In a dissent joined only by Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Alito castigated his colleagues for their decision in the early hours of Saturday to interfere in a decision that the Fifth Circuit was still adjudicating. “Shortly after midnight yesterday,” wrote Alito, “the Court hastily and prematurely granted unprecedented emergency relief.”

Alito lays out all the problems with the Court’s actions:

• It is not clear that the Court had jurisdiction.
• The ACLU probably did not have the authority to appeal to the Fifth Circuit, much less to the Supreme Court.
• The Fifth Circuit was still considering the case when the Supreme Court intervened, even though the SCOTUS knew the Fifth Circuit would be issuing a ruling momentarily.
• The government was not given a chance to respond to the appeal.
• The evidence in the appeal does not support emergency action.

As if to twist the knife a little, Alito reminds the Court that in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, Chief Justice Roberts turned away an emergency appeal of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s order closing churches during the “pandemic” saying an injunction pending appeal may only be granted when “the legal rights at issue are indisputably clear and, even then, sparingly and only in the most critical and exigent circumstances.” Apparently, American citizens being prevented from gathering to worship was not a problem, but a bunch of illegal gangbangers facing rightful deportation is enough of a cause to get the Supreme Court to break all rules and procedures.

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