Trump v. J. G. G.

P R E L I M I N A R Y P R I N T
Volume 604 U. S. Part 2
Pages 670–692
OFFICIAL REPORTS
OF
T H E S U P R E M E C O U R T
April 7, 2025
REBECCA A. WOMELDORF
reporter of decisions
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N O T I C E : This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before
the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter
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670 OCTOBER
TERM, 2024
Syllabus
TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,
et
al. v. J. G. G. et al.
on application to vacate the orders issued by the
united states district court for the district of
columbia
No. 24A931. Decided April 7, 2025
Presidential Proclamation No. 10903 invoked the Alien Enemies Act
(AEA) to designate certain Venezuelan nationals who are members of
Tren de Aragua—an entity designated as a foreign terrorist organiza-
tion—as alien enemies subject to detention and removal from the United
States. After fve detainees and a putative class sought injunctive and
declaratory relief, the District Court for the District of Columbia en-
tered temporary restraining orders (TROs) preventing removal of the
named plaintiffs and removal under the AEA of any member of a provi-
sionally certifed class consisting of noncitizens in U. S. custody who are
subject to the Proclamation. The D. C. Circuit denied the Govern-
ment's emergency motion to stay the orders. The Government seeks
vacatur of the orders from this Court.
Held: The Government's application is construed as an application to va-
cate appealable injunctions, see Carson v. American Brands, Inc., 450
U. S. 79, 84, and is granted. The parties' underlying arguments cannot
be reached in this action. Challenges to removal under the AEA, a
statute which largely “preclude[s] judicial review,” Ludecke v. Watkins,
335 U. S. 160, 163−164, must be brought in habeas. Venue for challeng-
ing removal under the AEA through habeas lies in the district of con-
fnement. The detainees are confned in Texas, so venue is improper in
the District of Columbia.
The detainees also sought equitable relief against summary removal,
but their rights against summary removal are not presently in dispute.
The Court has held that an individual subject to detention and removal
under the AEA is entitled to judicial review as to “questions of interpre-
tation and constitutionality” of the Act as well as whether he or she “is
in fact an alien enemy fourteen years of age or older.” Id., at 163−164,
172, n. 17. “It is well established that the Fifth Amendment entitles
aliens to due process of law” in the context of removal proceedings.
Reno v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292, 306. So, the detainees are entitled to
notice and opportunity to be heard “appropriate to the nature of the
case.” Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306,
313. In this context, AEA detainees must receive notice after the date
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671
Per Curiam
of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act. The notice
must
be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will
allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before
such removal occurs.
Per Curiam.
This matter concerns the detention and removal of Vene-
zuelan nationals believed to be members of Tren de Aragua
(TdA), an entity that the State Department has designated
as a foreign terrorist organization. See 90 Fed. Reg. 10030
(2025). The President issued Proclamation No. 10903, invok-
ing the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), Rev. Stat. § 4067, 50
U. S. C. § 21, to detain and remove Venezuelan nationals
“who are members of TdA.” Invocation of the Alien Ene-
mies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United States by
Tren de Aragua, 90 Fed. Reg. 13034. Five detainees and a
putative class sought injunctive and declaratory relief
against the implementation of, and their removal under, the
Proclamation. Initially, the detainees sought relief in ha-
beas among other causes of action, but they dismissed their
habeas claims. On March 15, 2025, the District Court for
the District of Columbia issued two temporary restraining
orders (TROs) preventing any removal of the named plain-
tiffs and preventing removal under the AEA of a provision-
ally certifed class consisting of “[a]ll noncitizens in U. S. cus-
tody who are subject to” the Proclamation. Minute Order
on Motion To Certify Class in No. 25−cv−00766. On March
28, the District Court extended the TROs for up to an addi-
tional 14 days. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 65(b)(2). The D. C.
Circuit denied the Government's emergency motion to stay
the orders. The Government then applied to this Court,
seeking vacatur of the orders. We construe these TROs as
appealable injunctions. See Carson v. American Brands,
Inc., 450 U. S. 79, 84 (1981).
We grant the application and vacate the TROs. The de-
tainees seek equitable relief against the implementation of
the Proclamation and against their removal under the AEA.
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672 TR
UMP v. J. G. G.
Per Curiam
They challenge the Government's interpretation of the Act
and
assert that they do not fall within the category of remov-
able alien enemies. But we do not reach those arguments.
Challenges to removal under the AEA, a statute which
largely “ `preclude[s] judicial review,' ” Ludecke v. Watkins,
335 U. S. 160, 163−164 (1948), must be brought in habeas. Cf.
Heikkila v. Barber, 345 U. S. 229, 234−235 (1953) (holding
that habeas was the only cause of action available to chal-
lenge deportation under immigration statutes that “pre-
clud[ed] judicial intervention” beyond what was necessary to
vindicate due process rights). Regardless of whether the
detainees formally request release from confnement, be-
cause their claims for relief “ `necessarily imply the invalid-
ity' ” of their confnement and removal under the AEA, their
claims fall within the “core” of the writ of habeas corpus and
thus must be brought in habeas. Cf. Nance v. Ward, 597
U. S. 159, 167 (2022) (quoting Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S.
477, 487 (1994)). And “immediate physical release [is not]
the only remedy under the federal writ of habeas corpus.”
Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U. S. 54, 67 (1968); see, e. g., Nance, 597
U. S., at 167 (explaining that a capital prisoner may seek “to
overturn his death sentence” in habeas by “analog[y]” to
seeking release); In re Bonner, 151 U. S. 242, 254, 259 (1894).
For “core habeas petitions,” “jurisdiction lies in only one dis-
trict: the district of confnement.” Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542
U. S. 426, 443 (2004). The detainees are confned in Texas,
so venue is improper in the District of Columbia. As a re-
sult, the Government is likely to succeed on the merits of
this action.
The detainees also sought equitable relief against sum-
mary removal. Although judicial review under the AEA is
limited, we have held that an individual subject to detention
and removal under that statute is entitled to “ `judicial re-
view' ” as to “questions of interpretation and constitutional-
ity” of the Act as well as whether he or she “is in fact an
alien enemy fourteen years of age or older.” Ludecke, 335

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673
Per Curiam
U. S., at 163−164, 172, n. 17. (Under the Proclamation, the
ter
m “alien enemy” is defned to include “all Venezuelan citi-
zens 14 years of age or older who are members of TdA, are
within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or
lawful permanent residents of the United States.” 90 Fed.
Reg. 13034.) The detainees' rights against summary re-
moval, however, are not currently in dispute. The Govern-
ment expressly agrees that “TdA members subject to re-
moval under the Alien Enemies Act get judicial review.”
Reply in Support of Application To Vacate 1. “It is well
established that the Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due
process of law” in the context of removal proceedings. Reno
v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292, 306 (1993). So, the detainees are
entitled to notice and opportunity to be heard “appropriate
to the nature of the case.” Mullane v. Central Hanover
Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 313 (1950). More specif-
cally, in this context, AEA detainees must receive notice
after the date of this order that they are subject to removal
under the Act. The notice must be afforded within a reason-
able time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually
seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal
occurs.
For all the rhetoric of the dissents, today's order and per
curiam confrm that the detainees subject to removal orders
under the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity to
challenge their removal. The only question is which court
will resolve that challenge. For the reasons set forth, we
hold that venue lies in the district of confnement. The dis-
sents would have the Court delay resolving that issue,
requiring—given our decision today—that the process begin
anew down the road. We see no beneft in such wasteful
delay.
The application to vacate the orders of the United States
District Court for the District of Columbia presented to The
Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is granted.
The March 15, 2025, minute orders granting a temporary re-

674 TR
UMP v. J. G. G.
Kavanaugh, J., concurring
straining order and March 28, 2025, extension of the United
St
ates District Court for the District of Columbia, case No.
1:25–cv–766, are vacated.
It is so ordered.
Justice Kavanaugh, concurring.
I agree with the Court's per curiam opinion. Impor-
tantly, as the Court stresses, the Court's disagreement with
the dissenters is not over whether the detainees receive judi-
cial review of their transfers—all nine Members of the Court
agree that judicial review is available. The only question is
where that judicial review should occur. That venue ques-
tion turns on whether these transfer claims belong in habeas
corpus proceedings or instead may be brought under the Ad-
ministrative Procedure Act. I agree with the Court's analy-
sis that the claims must be brought in habeas.
I add only that the use of habeas for transfer claims is
not novel. In the extradition context and with respect to
transfers of Guantanamo and other wartime detainees, ha-
beas corpus proceedings have long been the appropriate ve-
hicle. See LoBue v. Christopher, 82 F. 3d 1081, 1082 (CADC
1996); Kiyemba v. Obama, 561 F. 3d 509, 512–513 (CADC
2009). That general rule holds true for claims under the
Alien Enemies Act, the statute under which the Government
is seeking to remove these detainees. See Ludecke v. Wat-
kins, 335 U. S. 160, 163, 171, and n. 17 (1948). And going
back to the English Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, if not earlier,
habeas corpus has been the proper vehicle for detainees to
bring claims seeking to bar their transfers. See Habeas
Corpus Act of 1679, 31 Car. 2, c. 2, §§ 11–12.
Especially given the history and precedent of using habeas
corpus to review transfer claims, and given 5 U. S. C. § 704,
which states that claims under the APA are not available
when there is another “adequate remedy in a court,” I agree
with the Court that habeas corpus, not the APA, is the
proper vehicle here.
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675
Sotomayor, J., dissenting
Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Kagan and
Justice
Jackson join, and with whom Justice Barrett
joins as to Parts II and III–B, dissenting.
Three weeks ago, the Federal Government started sending
scores of Venezuelan immigrants detained in the United
States to a foreign prison in El Salvador. It did so without
any due process of law, under the auspices of the Alien
Enemies Act, a 1798 law designed for times of war. Be-
tween the start of these removals and now, a District Court
has been expeditiously considering the legal claims of a
group of detainees (hereafter plaintiffs), who allege that
their summary removal violates the Constitution and multi-
ple statutes. The District Court ordered a pause on plain-
tiffs' removals until it could consider their motion for a
preliminary injunction at a hearing tomorrow, on April 8.
Still, a majority of the Court sees ft to speak to this issue
today.
Critically, even the majority today agrees, and the Federal
Government now admits, that individuals subject to removal
under the Alien Enemies Act are entitled to adequate notice
and judicial review before they can be removed. That
should have been the end of the matter. Yet, with “bare-
bones briefng, no argument, and scarce time for refection,”
Department of Education v. California, 604 U. S. 650, 653
(2025) (Kagan, J., dissenting), the Court announces that
legal challenges to an individual's removal under the Alien
Enemies Act must be brought in habeas petitions in the dis-
trict where they are detained.
The Court's legal conclusion is suspect. The Court inter-
venes anyway, granting the Government extraordinary relief
and vacating the District Court's order on that basis alone.
It does so without mention of the grave harm plaintiffs will
face if they are erroneously removed to El Salvador or
regard for the Government's attempts to subvert the judi-
cial process throughout this litigation. Because the Court
should not reward the Government's efforts to erode the rule
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676 TR
UMP v. J. G. G.
Sotomayor, J., dissenting
of law with discretionary equitable relief, I respectfully
dissent.
I
A
Th
is case arises out of the President's unprecedented
peacetime invocation of a wartime law known as the Alien
Enemies Act. See Act of July 6, 1798, ch. 66, 1 Stat. 577.
Enacted in 1798 by a Congress consumed with fear of war
with France, the Alien Enemies Act provided a wartime
counterpart to the widely denounced Alien Friends Act,
which granted the President sweeping power to detain and
expel any noncitizen he deemed “dangerous to the peace and
safety of the United States.” Act of June 25, 1798, 1 Stat.
571. Unlike the Alien Friends Act, which lapsed in disre-
pute as James Madison deemed it “a monster that must for
ever disgrace its parents,” the Founders saw the Alien Ene-
mies Act as a constitutional exercise of Congress's powers to
“declare War,” to “raise and support Armies,” and to “pro-
vide for calling forth the Militia to . . . suppress Insurrections
and repel Invasions.” U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cls. 11–15.
1
To that end, the Act grants the President power to detain
and remove foreign citizens of a “hostile nation or govern-
ment” when “there is a declared war” with such nation or
when a “foreign nation” threatens “invasion or predatory in-
cursion” against the territory of the United States. Rev.
Stat. § 4067, 50 U. S. C. § 21. Before today, U. S. Presidents
have invoked the Alien Enemies Act only three times, each
in the context of an ongoing war: the War of 1812, World
War I, and World War II.
2
1
Letter from J. Madison to T. Jefferson (May 20, 1798), in 30 Papers of
Thomas Jefferson 359 (B. Oberg ed. 2003); see also Madison's Report on
the Virginia Resolution, in The Book of the Constitution 52 (E. Williams
ed. 1833).
2
Lockington v. Smith, 15 F. Cas. 758, 758–759 (No. 8,448) (CC Pa. 1817)
(discussing the War of 1812 proclamation); Declaring the Existence of a
State of War With the German Empire and Setting Forth Regulations
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677
Sotomayor, J., dissenting
That changed on March 14, 2025, when President Trump
i
nvoked the Alien Enemies Act to address an alleged “Inva-
sion of the United States by Tren De Aragua,” a criminal
organization based in Venezuela. See Invocation of the
Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United
States by Tren de Aragua, Proclamation No. 10903, 90 Fed.
Reg. 13033. There is, of course, no ongoing war between
the United States and Venezuela. Nor is Tren de Aragua
itself a “foreign nation.” § 21. The President's Proclama-
tion nonetheless asserts that Tren de Aragua is “undertak-
ing hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against
the territory of the United States both directly and at the
direction . . . of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.” Id., at
13034. Based on these fndings, the Proclamation declares
that “all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who
are members of [Tren de Aragua]” and are not “naturalized
[citizens] or lawful permanent residents” are liable to “imme-
diate apprehension, detention, and removal” as alien ene-
mies. Ibid.
Congress requires the President to “mak[e] public pro-
clamation” of his intention to invoke the Alien Enemies
Ac t. § 21. President Tr ump did just the opposite.
In what can be understood only as covert preparation to
skirt both the requirements of the Act and the Constitu-
tion's guarantee of due process, the Department of Home-
land Security (DHS) began moving Venezuelan migrants
from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention cen-
ters across the country to the El Valle Detention Facility
in South Texas before the President had even signed the
Proclamation. 772 F. Supp. 3d 18, 26 (DC 2025). The trans-
ferred detainees, most of whom denied past or present af-
fliation with any gang, did not know the reason for their
transfer until the evening of Friday, March 14, when they
Prescribing Conduct Toward Alien Enemies, Proclamation No. 1364, 40
Stat. 1650 (World War I); Alien Enemies— Japanese, Proclamation No.
2525, 55 Stat. 1700 (World War II).
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UMP v. J. G. G.
Sotomayor, J., dissenting
were apparently “pulled from their cells and told that they
wou
ld be deported the next day to an unknown destina-
tion.” Ibid.
B
Suspecting that the President had covertly signed a Proc-
lamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act, several lawyers
anticipated their clients' imminent deportation and fled a
putative class action in the District of Columbia. App. to
Brief in Opposition to Application To Vacate 9a (App. to
BIO). They contested that Tren de Aragua had committed
or attempted the kind of “ `invasion' ” or “ `predatory incur-
sion' ” required to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. Ibid.
They also asserted that it would violate the Due Process
Clause to deport their clients before they had any chance
to challenge the Government's allegations of gang member-
ship. Id., at 26a. The plaintiffs did not seek release from
custody, but asked the court only to restrain the Govern-
ment's planned deportations under the Proclamation. Id., at
9a, 29a.
In the early morning of March 15, the District Court in-
formed the Government of the lawsuit and scheduled an
emergency hearing. Despite knowing of plaintiffs' claim
that it would be unlawful to remove them under the Procla-
mation, the Government ushered the named plaintiffs onto
planes along with dozens of other detainees, all without any
opportunity to contact their lawyers, much less notice or op-
portunity to be heard. See 772 F. Supp. 3d, at 28–29; see
also, e. g., Decl. of G. Carney in No. 25–cv–00766 (D DC, Mar.
19, 2025), ECF Doc. 44–11, p. 2.
The Government's plan, it appeared, was to rush plaintiffs
out of the country before a court could decide whether the
President's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was lawful
or whether these individuals were, in fact, members of Tren
de Aragua. Plaintiff J. G. G., for example, had no chance
to tell a court that the tattoos causing DHS to suspect him
of gang membership were unrelated to a gang. Decl. of
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679
Sotomayor, J., dissenting
J. G. G., ECF Doc. 3–3, at 1. He avers that he is a tattoo
ar
tist who “got [an] eye tattoo because [he] saw it on Google”
and “thought it looked cool.” Ibid. Plaintiff G. F. F., too,
was denied the chance to inform a court that the Government
accused him of being an “associate/affliate of Tren d[e] Ara-
gua” based solely on his presence at a party of strangers,
which he attended at the “insistence of a friend.” Decl. of
G. Carney, ECF Doc. 3–4, at 1.
C
Recognizing the emergency the Government had created
by deporting plaintiffs without due process, the District
Court issued a temporary restraining order that same morn-
ing. The order prohibited the Government from removing
the fve named plaintiffs, including J. G. G. and G. F. F., pend-
ing ongoing litigation. G. F. F., who had been “on a plane for
about forty minutes to an hour” as “crying and frightened”
individuals were forced on board, was subsequently re-
trieved from the plane by a guard who told him he “ `just
won the lottery.' ” Decl. of G. Carney, ECF Doc. 44–11, at 3.
The court then set an emergency hearing for 5 p.m. that
same day, at which it planned to consider plaintiffs' claim
that temporary relief should be extended to a class of all
noncitizens subject to the anticipated Proclamation. See
772 F. Supp. 3d, at 27. Despite notice to the Government of
the court's scheduled hearing, DHS continued to load up the
two planes with detainees and scheduled their immediate de-
parture. See Tr. 12 (Mar. 15, 2025) (Two fights “were
scheduled for this afternoon that may have already taken off
or [will] during this hearing ”); Tr. 9 (Apr. 3, 2025) (Govern-
ment counsel agreeing that DHS was “acting in preparation
of the proclamation before it was posted”). Not until an
hour before the District Court's scheduled hearing, and only
moments before the Government planned to send its planes
off to El Salvador, did the White House fnally publish the
Proclamation on its website.
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UMP v. J. G. G.
Sotomayor, J., dissenting
At its 5 p.m. hearing, the District Court provisionally cer-
ti
fed a class of Venezuelan noncitizens subject to the Procla-
mation. See Tr. 23, 25 (Mar. 15, 2025). It then issued an
oral temporary restraining order prohibiting the Govern-
ment from removing all members of the class pursuant to
the Proclamation for 14 days. Id., at 42. The order did not
disturb the Government's ability to apprehend or detain indi-
viduals pursuant to the Proclamation or its authority to de-
port any individual under the Immigration and Naturaliza-
tion Act. See ibid.; see 772 F. Supp. 3d, at 24. All it required
of the Government was a pause in deportations pursuant to
the Proclamation until the court had a chance to review their
legality. See Tr. 4 (Apr. 3, 2025) (“All th[e TROs] did was
order that the government could not summarily deport in-
custody noncitizens who were subject to the proclamation
without a hearing ”). The court further directed that “any
plane containing ” individuals subject to the Proclamation
“that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned
to the United States.” Tr. 43 (Mar. 15, 2025).
D
Concerns about the Government's compliance with the
order quickly followed. Even now, the District Court con-
tinues to investigate what happened via show-cause proceed-
ings. In those proceedings, the Government took the posi-
tion that it had no legal obligation to obey the District
Court's orders directing the return of planes in fight because
they were issued from the bench. See Tr. 17 (Mar. 17, 2025)
(“[O]ral statements are not injunctions”). Of course, as the
Government well knows, courts routinely issue rulings from
the bench, and those rulings can be appealed, including to
this Court, in appropriate circumstances.
3
3
See, e. g., United States v. Fruehauf, 365 U. S. 146, 154 (1961) (hearing
Government's direct appeal from oral ruling); Evans v. Michigan, 568
U. S. 313, 320 (2013) (relying on lower court's oral ruling); see also Wright
v. Continental Airlines Corp., 103 F. 3d 146 (CA10 1996) (Table) (oral
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Sotomayor, J., dissenting
The District Court, for its part, has surmised that “the
Gover
nment knew as of 10 a.m. on March 15 that the Court
would hold a hearing later that day,” yet it “hustled people
onto those planes in hopes of evading an injunction or per-
haps preventing [individuals] from requesting the habeas
hearing to which the Government now acknowledges they
are entitled.” 772 F. Supp. 3d, at 28. Rather than turn
around the planes that were in the air when the Court issued
its order, moreover, the Federal Government landed the
planes full of alleged Venezuelan nationals in El Salvador
and transferred them directly into El Salvador's Center for
Terrorism Confnement (CECOT). Id., at 29.
Deportation directly into CECOT presented a risk of ex-
traordinary harm to these plaintiffs. The record refects
that inmates in Salvadoran prisons are “ `highly likely to face
immediate and intentional life-threatening harm at the hands
of state actors.' ” Id., at 41 (quoting App. to BIO 258a).
CECOT detainees are frequently “denied communication
with their relatives and lawyers, and only appear before
courts in online hearings, often in groups of several hundred
detainees at the same time.” Id., at 260a. El Salvador has
boasted that inmates in CECOT “ `will never leave,' ” ibid.,
and plaintiffs present evidence that “inmates are rarely al-
lowed to leave their cells, have no regular access to drinking
water or adequate food, sleep standing up because of over-
crowding, and are held in cells where they do not see sun-
light for days,” 772 F. Supp. 3d, at 42. One scholar attests
that an estimated 375 detainees have died in Salvadoran
prisons since March 2022. Ibid.
What if the Government later determines that it sent one
of these detainees to CECOT in error? Or a court eventu-
ruling was binding on parties); In re Justice, 172 F. 3d 876 (CA9 1999)
(Table) (oral order was binding and effective even when written order was
never entered); Ueckert v. Guerra, 38 F. 4th 446, 451–452 (CA5 2022) (oral
ruling fnal and appealable even where district court never issued writ-
ten judgment).
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UMP v. J. G. G.
Sotomayor, J., dissenting
ally decides that the President lacked authority under the
Al
ien Enemies Act to declare that Tren de Aragua is perpe-
trating or attempting an “invasion” against the territory of
the United States? The Government takes the position
that, even when it makes a mistake, it cannot retrieve indi-
viduals from the Salvadoran prisons to which it has sent
them. See Defendants' Memorandum of Law in Opposition
in Abrego Garcia v. Noem, No. 25–cv–951 (D Md., Mar. 31,
2025), ECF Doc. 11, p. 7–9. The implication of the Govern-
ment's position is that not only noncitizens but also United
States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto
planes, and confned to foreign prisons with no opportunity
for redress if judicial review is denied unlawfully before re-
moval. History is no stranger to such lawless regimes, but
this Nation's system of laws is designed to prevent, not en-
able, their rise.
E
Even as the Government has continued to litigate whether
its March 15 deportations complied with the District Court's
orders, it simultaneously sought permission to resume sum-
mary deportations under the Proclamation. The District
Court, frst, denied the Government's motion to vacate its
temporary restraining order, rejecting the assertion that
“the President's authority and discretion under the [Alien
Enemies Act] is not a proper subject for judicial scrutiny.”
App. to BIO 71a. At the very least, the District Court con-
cluded, the plaintiffs were “likely to succeed” on their claim
that, “before they may be deported, they are entitled to indi-
vidualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to
them at all.” 772 F. Supp. 3d, at 24. The D. C. Circuit, too,
denied the Government a requested stay and kept in place
the District Court's pause on deportations under the Alien
Enemies Ac t pendi ng fur ther proceedi ngs. 2025 WL
914682, *1 (Mar. 26, 2025) (per curiam).
It is only this Court that sees reason to vacate, for the
second time this week, a temporary restraining order stand-
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683
Sotomayor, J., dissenting
ing “on its last legs.” Department of Education, 604 U. S.,
at
654 (Jackson, J., dissenting). Not content to wait until
tomorrow, when the District Court will have a chance to con-
sider full preliminary injunction briefng at a scheduled hear-
ing, this Court intervenes to relieve the Government of its
obligation under the order.
II
Begin with that upon which all nine Members of this Court
agree. The Court's order today dictates, in no uncertain
terms, that “individual[s] subject to detention and removal
under [the Alien Enemies Act are] entitled to `judicial re-
view' as to `questions of interpretation and constitutionality'
of the Act as well as whether he or she `is in fact an alien
enemy fourteen years of age or older.' ” Ante, at 672 (quot-
ing Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U. S. 160, 163–164, 172, n. 17
(1948)). Therefore, under today's order, courts below will
probe, among other things, the meaning of an “invasion” or
“predatory incursion,” 50 U. S. C. § 21, and ask, for example,
whether any given individual is in fact a member of Tren de
Aragua. Even the Government has now largely conceded
that point. Application 19.
So too do we all agree with the per curiam's command
that the Fifth Amendment requires the Government to af-
ford plaintiffs “notice after the date of this order that they
are subject to removal under the Act[,] . . . within a reason-
able time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually
seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal
occurs.” Ante, at 673. That means, of course, that the Gov-
ernment cannot usher any detainees, including plaintiffs,
onto planes in a shroud of secrecy, as it did on March 15,
2025. Nor can the Government “immediately resume” re-
moving individuals without notice upon vacatur of the TRO,
as it promised the D. C. Circuit it would do. See 2025 WL
914682, *13 (Millett, J., concurring) (referencing oral argu-
ment before that court). To the extent the Government re-
moves even one individual without affording him notice and
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a meaningful opportunity to fle and pursue habeas relief, it
does
so in direct contravention of an edict by the United
States Supreme Court.
III
In light of this agreement, the Court's decision to inter-
vene in this litigation is as inexplicable as it is dangerous.
Recall that, when the District Court issued its temporary
restraining order on March 15, 2025, the Government was
engaged in a covert operation to deport dozens of immi-
grants without notice or an opportunity for hearings. The
Court's ruling today means that those deportations violated
the Due Process Clause's most fundamental protections.
See ante, at 673 (reiterating that notice and an opportunity
for a hearing are required before a deportation under the
Alien Enemies Act). The District Court rightly intervened
to prohibit temporarily the Government from deporting
more individuals in this manner, based on its correct assess-
ment that the plaintiffs were likely entitled to more process.
772 F. Supp. 3d, at 24.
Against the backdrop of the U. S. Government's unprece-
dented deportation of dozens of immigrants to a foreign
prison without due process, a majority of this Court sees ft
to vacate the District Court's order. The reason, appar-
ently, is that the majority thinks plaintiffs' claims should
have been styled as habeas actions and fled in the districts
of their detention. In reaching that result, the majority
fouts well-established limits on its jurisdiction, creates new
law on the emergency docket, and elides the serious threat
our intervention poses to the lives of individual detainees.
A
As an initial matter, the Court lacks jurisdiction to review
the District Court's time-limited, interlocutory order. It is
well established that, generally, “temporary restraining or-
ders are not appealable.” 16 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E.
Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3922.1, p. 90 (3d
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ed. 2012). That rule is a general one because it gives way
where
a temporary restraining order risks imposing such an
“ `irreparable . . . consequence' ” that an immediate appeal is
necessary if the order is to be “ `effectually challenged' ” at
all. Carson v. American Brands, Inc., 450 U. S. 79, 84
(1981).
Here, the District Court ordered a 14-day halt on deporta-
tions pursuant to the Proclamation (extended once for 14 ad-
ditional days) because it thought the plaintiffs were likely
entitled to “individualized hearings to determine whether
the Act applies to them at all.” 772 F. Supp. 3d, at 24. The
Government now admits that it must provide detainees with
adequate notice, and it says they can then fle habeas peti-
tions in the Southern District of Texas to contest and stay
their removal under the Alien Enemies Act. Such proceed-
ings, if adequately provided, necessarily mean that the Gov-
ernment cannot imminently deport the plaintiffs under the
Proclamation. So it is hard to see why the District Court's
temporary restraining order (of which only fve days now
remain) presented the Government with an emergency of
any kind, much less one that required an immediate appeal.
B
Also troubling is this Court's decision to vacate summarily
the District Court's order on the novel ground that an indi-
vidual's challenge to his removal under the Alien Enemies
Act “fall[s] within the `core' of the writ of habeas corpus”
and must therefore be fled where the plaintiffs are detained.
Ante, at 672. The Court reaches that conclusion without
oral argument or the beneft of percolation in the lower
courts, and with just a few days of deliberation based on
barebones briefng.
This conclusion is dubious. As an initial matter, the ma-
jority's assertion that plaintiffs' claims “sound” in habeas is
in tension with this Court's understanding of habeas corpus
as, at its core, an avenue for a person in custody to “attack
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. . . the legality of that custody” and “to secure release from
i
llegal custody.” Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 484
(1973). The plaintiffs in this case sued not to challenge their
detention, but to protect themselves from summary deporta-
tion pursuant to the Proclamation. Indeed, because all of
the plaintiffs were already in immigration detention under
other statutes when the Government subjected them to the
Proclamation, they “have repeatedly emphasized throughout
this litigation that they `do not seek release from custody' ”
and are not “contesting the validity of their confnement or
seeking to shorten its duration.” 772 F. Supp. 3d, at 32.
Nevertheless, the majority insists that plaintiffs' claims
“ `necessarily imply the invalidity' ” of their confnement and
removal under the Act, and so essentially amount to a chal-
lenge to their present physical confnement. Ante, at 672.
It therefore analogizes this case to the line of cases begin-
ning with Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477 (1994), where the
Court held that individuals serving state criminal sentences
cannot bring 42 U. S. C. § 1983 suits to complain of “unconsti-
tutional treatment at the hands of state offcials” if a judg-
ment in their favor would “necessarily imply the invalidity
of his conviction or sentence.” 512 U. S., at 480, 487. In
such cases, habeas is the exclusive avenue for relief. Ibid.
Plaintiffs' claims, however, do not “imply the invalidity of ”
their detention, because their detention predated the Procla-
mation and was unrelated to the Alien Enemies Act. Thus,
if they succeeded in showing that they could not be removed
under the Proclamation, that would not result in their
release from detention. Even in the context of § 1983
challenges by criminal defendants, this Court has never “rec-
ognized habeas as the sole remedy, or even an available one,
where the relief sought would `neither terminate custody, ac-
celerate the future date of release from custody, nor reduce
the level of custody.' ” Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U. S. 521, 534
(2011) (brackets omitted).
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There is also good reason to doubt that Heck's holding
about
the availability of relief under § 1983 extends to Ad-
ministrative Procedure Act (APA) claims challenging execu-
tive action under the Alien Enemies Act. The Heck bar
arose from the Court reading an “ `implicit exception' ” into
§ 1983 to avoid “swamping the habeas statute's coverage of
claims that the prisoner is `in custody in violation of the Con-
stitution.' ” Nance v. Ward, 597 U. S. 159, 167 (2022) (quot-
ing 28 U. S. C. § 2254(a)). This Court has never limited the
availability of APA relief so narrowly. To the contrary, the
APA has long been available to plaintiffs absent specifc pre-
clusion by Congress. Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387
U. S. 136, 141 (1967).
Although the APA allows courts to review only agency
action “for which there is no other adequate remedy in a
court,” 5 U. S. C. § 704, this Court has long read that limita-
tion narrowly, emphasizing that it “should not be construed
to defeat the central purpose of providing a broad spectrum
of judicial review of agency action.” Bowen v. Massachu-
setts, 487 U. S. 879, 903 (1988); see also Darby v. Cisneros,
509 U. S. 137, 146 (1993) (“Congress intended by that provi-
sion simply to avoid duplicating previously established spe-
cial statutory procedures for review of agency actions”). In-
deed, in the mid-20th century, this Court repeatedly said that
habeas and APA actions were both available to noncitizens
challenging their deportation orders. See Brownell v. Tom
We Shung, 352 U. S. 180, 181 (1956) (“[E]ither remedy is
available in seeking review of [deportation] orders”); see also
Shaughnessy v. Pedreiro, 349 U. S. 48, 50–51 (1955) (allowing
for judicial review of a deportation order under the APA).
Against that backdrop, there is every reason to question
the majority's hurried conclusion that habeas relief supplies
the exclusive means to challenge removal under the Alien
Enemies Act. At the very least, the question is a thorny
one, and this emergency application was not the place to re-
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solve it. Nor was it the Court's last chance to weigh in.
The
debate about habeas exclusivity remains ongoing in the
District Court, in the context of pending preliminary injunc-
tion proceedings. If the District Court were to resolve the
question in plaintiffs' favor, the Government could have ap-
pealed to this Court in the ordinary course, and we could
have decided it after thorough briefng and oral argument.
In its rush to decide the issue now, the Court halts the lower
court's work and forces us to decide the matter after mere
days of deliberation and without adequate time to weigh the
parties' arguments or the full record of the District Court's
proceedings.
C
The majority's rush to resolve the question is all the more
troubling because this is not one of those rare cases in which
the Court must immediately intervene “despite the risk” of
error attendant in deciding novel legal questions on the
emergency docket. Department of Education, 604 U. S., at
653 (Kagan, J., dissenting). Recall that the dispute has now
narrowed into a debate about “which procedural vehicle is
best situated for the Plaintiffs' injunctive and declaratory
claims”: individual habeas petitions fled in district courts
across the country or a class action fled in the District of
Columbia. 2025 WL 914682, *29 (Millett, J., concurring).
The Government may well prefer to defend against “300 or
more individual habeas petitions” than face this class APA
case in Washington, D. C. Ibid. That is especially so be-
cause the Government can transfer detainees to particular
locations in an attempt to secure a more hospitable judicial
forum. But such a preference for defending against one
form of litigation over the other is far from the kind of con-
crete and irreparable harm that requires this Court to take
the “ `extraordinary' ” step of intervening at this moment,
while litigation in the lower courts remains ongoing. Wil-
liams v. Zbaraz, 442 U. S. 1309, 1311 (1979) (Stevens, J., in
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chambers); see Department of Education, 604 U. S., at 660
(
Jackson, J., dissenting).
Meanwhile, funneling plaintiffs' claims into individual ha-
beas actions across the Nation risks exposing them to severe
and irreparable harm. Rather than seeking to enjoin imple-
mentation of the President's Proclamation against all Vene-
zuelan nationals in immigration detention, detainees scat-
tered across the country must each obtain counsel and fle
habeas petitions on their own accord, all without knowing
whether they will remain in detention where they were ar-
rested or be secretly transferred to an alternative location.
Cf. Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., 527 U. S. 815, 860 (1999) (“One
great advantage of class action treatment . . . is the opportu-
nity to save the enormous transaction costs of piecemeal
litigation”).
That requirement may have life or death consequences.
Individuals who are unable to secure counsel, or who cannot
timely appeal an adverse judgment rendered by a habeas
court, face the prospect of removal directly into the perilous
conditions of El Salvador's CECOT, where detainees suffer
egregious human rights abuses. See supra, at 681–682.
Anyone the Government mistakenly deports in its piecemeal
and rushed implementation of the challenged Proclamation
will face the same grave risks. Cf. Defendants' Memoran-
dum of Law in Opposition in Abrego Garcia v. Noem, No. 25–
cv–951, ECF Doc. 11, at 3.
The stakes are all the more obvious in light of the Govern-
ment's insistence that, once it sends someone to CECOT, it
cannot be made to retrieve them. Ibid. The Government
is at this very moment seeking emergency relief from an
order requiring it to facilitate the return of an individual the
Government concededly removed to CECOT “because of an
administrative error.” Id., at 5; see Emergency Motion for
Stay Pending Appeal and Immediate Administrative Stay in
Abrego Garcia v. Noem, No. 25–1345 (CA4, Apr. 5, 2025),
ECF Doc. 3–1, p. 2 (“No federal court has the power to com-
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mand the Executive to engage in a certain act of foreign
relati
ons . . . ”). The Government's resistance to facilitating
the return of individuals erroneously removed to CECOT
only amplifes the specter that, even if this Court someday
declares the President's Proclamation unlawful, scores of in-
dividual lives may be irretrievably lost.
More fundamentally, this Court exercises its equitable dis-
cretion to intervene without accounting for the Government
noncompliance that has permeated this litigation to date.
The maxim that “ `he who comes into equity must come with
clean hands' ” has long guided this Court's exercise of equita-
ble discretion. Precision Instrument Mfg. Co. v. Automo-
tive Maintenance Machinery Co., 324 U. S. 806, 814 (1945).
While “ `equity does not demand that its suitors shall have
led blameless lives' ” as to other matters, “it does require
that they shall have acted fairly and without fraud or deceit
as to the controversy in issue.” Id., at 814–815 (citing Key-
stone Driller Co. v. General Excavator Co., 290 U. S. 240,
245 (1933)).
Far from acting “fairly” as to the controversy in District
Court, the Government has largely ignored its obligations to
the rule of law. From the start, the Government sought to
avoid judicial review, “hustl[ing] people onto those planes”
without notice or public Proclamation apparently “in the
hopes of evading an injunction or perhaps preventing them
from requesting the habeas hearing to which the Govern-
ment now acknowledges they are entitled.” 772 F. Supp. 3d,
at 28. That the District Court is engaged in a sincere in-
quiry into whether the Government willfully violated its
March 15, 2025, order to turn around the planes should be
reason enough to doubt that the Government appears before
this Court with clean hands. That is all the more true be-
cause the Government has persistently stonewalled the Dis-
trict Court's efforts to fnd out whether the Government in
fact fouted its express order. See Tr. 4–5 (Mar. 15, 2025);
Tr. 6–9 (Mar. 17, 2025).
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Jackson, J., dissenting
***
The
Government's conduct in this litigation poses an ex-
traordinary threat to the rule of law. That a majority of this
Court now rewards the Government for its behavior with
discretionary equitable relief is indefensible. We, as a Na-
tion and a court of law, should be better than this. I re-
spectfully dissent.
Justice Jackson, dissenting.
I join Justice Sotomayor's dissent in full and would deny
the application for all the reasons she explains. I write sep-
arately to question the majority's choice to intervene on the
eve of the District Court's preliminary-injunction hearing
without scheduling argument or receiving merits briefng.
This fy-by-night approach to the work of the Supreme Court
is not only misguided. It is also dangerous.
The President of the United St ates has i nvoked a
centuries-old wartime statute to whisk people away to a no-
toriously brutal, foreign-run prison. For lovers of liberty,
this should be quite concerning. Surely, the question
whether such Government action is consistent with our Con-
stitution and laws warrants considerable thought and atten-
tion from the Judiciary. That was why the District Court
issued a temporary restraining order to prevent immediate
harm to the targeted individuals while the court considered
the lawfulness of the Government's conduct. But this Court
now sees fit to i ntervene, hasti ly dash i ng off a four-
paragraph pe r cur i am opi ni on discardi ng the D istr ic t
Court's order based solely on a new legal pronouncement
that, one might have thought, would require signifcant
deliberation.
When this Court decides complex and monumental issues,
it typically allows the lower courts to address those matters
frst; it then receives full briefng, hears oral argument, delib-
erates internally, and, fnally, issues a reasoned opinion.
Those standard processes may not always yield correct re-
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sults. But when we deviate from them, the risk of error
a
lways substantially increases. Today's rushed conclu-
sion—that those challenging the Government's action can
only pursue their claims through habeas—is Exhibit A.
I lament that the Court appears to have embarked on a
new era of procedural variability, and that it has done so
in such a casual, inequitable, and, in my view, inappropriate
manner. See Department of Education v. California, 604
U. S. 650, 653–654 (2025) (Jackson, J., dissenting). At least
when the Court went off base in the past, it left a record so
posterity could see how it went wrong. See, e. g., Kore-
matsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214 (1944). With more and
more of our most signifcant rulings taking place in the shad-
ows of our emergency docket, today's Court leaves less and
less of a trace. But make no mistake: We are just as wrong
now as we have been in the past, with similarly devastating
consequences. It just seems we are now less willing to
face it.
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Reporter’s Note
The attached opinion has been revised to refect the usual publication
and citation style of the United States Reports. The revised pagination
makes available the offcial United States Reports citation in advance of
publication. The syllabus has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions
for the convenience of the reader and constitutes no part of the opinion of
the Court. Other revisions may include adjustments to formatting, cap-
tions, citation form, and any errant punctuation. The following additional
edits were made:
p. 683, line 12 from bottom: “a” is inserted before “reasonable”