Supreme Court allows deportations without due process

On June 23, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court overturned a district court’s injunction which prevented the government from deporting noncitizens without due process—i.e., without notice or an opportunity to prove their legal right to remain in the country.

The majority did so without writing an opinion to explain their reasoning. Accordingly, no explanation for this radical departure from the rule of law was provided.

Carved into the Supreme Court building in Washington D.C are the words "equal justice under law." However, by not upholding due process rights for noncitizens, the Supreme Court has rendered the law neither equal nor just.

“Rather than allowing our lower court colleagues to manage this high-stakes litigation with the care and attention it plainly requires, this Court now intervenes to grant the government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied. I cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion,” Justice Sotomayor said in a dissenting opinion joined by the two other liberal justices.

The conservative majority's silence speaks volumes. 

In the face of overwhelming and unambiguous Supreme Court precedent, it is hard to see how the majority could have justified its decision.

"It is well established that ... once an alien enters the country, the legal circumstance changes, for the Due Process Clause applies to all 'persons' within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary or permanent," said the Supreme Court in Zadvydas v. Davis.

The issue of whether the right to due process applies to deportations is also not an open question.

"It is true that aliens who have once passed through our gates, even illegally, may be expelled only after proceedings conforming to traditional standards of fairness encompassed in due process of law," said the Supreme Court in Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei

The importance of due process to the fair administration of justice is equally clear, as Justice Sotomayor reiterated in her dissent.

"The Due Process Clause represents 'the principle that ours is a government of laws, not of men, and that we submit ourselves to rulers only if under rules.' ... By rewarding lawlessness, the Court once again undermines that foundational principle," Justice Sotomayor said.

Nonetheless, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court has permitted the Trump administration to continue deportations without requiring any due process whatsoever.

"The Government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard," Justice Sotomayor said. "This is not the first time the Court closes its eyes to noncompliance, nor, I fear, will it be the last."