Justice Alito blasts SCOTUS colleagues for ‘unprecedented and legally questionable’ midnight ruling on deportation

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito delivered a fiery dissent to his colleagues for their “legally questionable” ruling that blocked the Trump administration’s deportation efforts.

In a 7-2 decision, the high court blocked the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport a group of Venezuelan migrants. Conservative Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, appointed by President Donald Trump, joined the majority opinion in the early Saturday morning decision.

“The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court,” the ruling noted, referring to the Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Texas.

(Video Credit: WPLG Local 10)

Alito, along with Justice Clarence Thomas, vehemently disagreed with the decision.

“In sum, literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support for its order, and without providing any explanation for its order,” Alito wrote.

“I 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,” he added.

“Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law. The Executive must proceed under the terms of our order in Trump v. J. G. G., 604 U. S. ___ (2025) (per curiam), and this Court should follow established procedures,” the dissent read.

Justice Alito’s dissent is pic.twitter.com/1MqHYhPea9

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) April 20, 2025

Alito argued over the court’s jurisdiction and the manipulation of the process by groups like the leftist ACLU.

“This Court had jurisdiction only if the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction of the applicants’ appeal, and the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction only if the supposed order that the applicants appealed amounted to the denial of a preliminary injunction,” Alito wrote.

Trump administration lawyers responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling in an opposition filing.

“The government has agreed not to remove, pursuant to the AEA, those AEA detainees who do file habeas claims (including the putative class representatives),” the filing stated. “This Court should dissolve its current administrative stay and allow the lower courts to address the relevant legal and factual questions in the first instance — including the development of a proper factual record.”

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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.

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