The Summer Showdown: Trump’s Deportation Machine Faces a Supreme Court Reckoning

Armed with fresh precedent, the ACLU demands justice for hundreds secretly deported under Trump's phony "war" powers, and the courts are running out of excuses.

After two brutal court losses, one from the Supreme Court itself, and one from the Fourth Circuit, the Trump administration now faces a new front in the legal war over its midnight deportations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed an amended class action lawsuit before Judge Jeb Boasberg in D.C., directly connecting the government's unconstitutional actions against Abrego Garcia to the broader pattern of deporting at least 137 individuals without notice, due process, or access to the courts.

What makes this move so shrewd is that the ACLU is seizing on the Supreme Court’s recent rulings, using the very language the Court demanded in Abrego Garcia: writs of habeas corpus, due process rights, and the government's obligation to "facilitate the return" of wrongfully deported individuals.

In other words, precedent is now on their side, and they're hammering it.

Among those wrongfully deported is Andre Jose Hernandez Romero, an openly gay barber and makeup artist, now stranded in one of the world’s most notorious prisons for LGBTQ+ people, El Salvador’s CECOT, thanks to Trump's fabricated "war" with Venezuela. No war has been declared. Congress has not authorized military action. Even under the Alien Enemies Act, used only during actual wars like WWI, WWII, and the War of 1812, the Trump administration’s move is legally nonsensical.

The new filing demands two immediate remedies:

1. Class Certification: Judge Boasberg must formally recognize the deported individuals as a legal class deserving protection.

2. Immediate Injunctive Relief: The government must act to immediately retrieve those deported under false pretenses, cease funding their illegal imprisonment by Salvadoran agents, and stop all deportations based on Trump's phony "proclamation of war."

But the looming battle isn’t just about deportees anymore, it’s also about whether a class action can even be used in habeas corpus cases. That question, unresolved and enormously consequential, could race back to the Supreme Court before summer is out.

The stakes could not be higher. If the ACLU succeeds, it could rip the legal foundation out from under Trump’s mass deportation machine, not just for these cases, but for any future attempts to invoke war powers without Congressional approval.

And if the Court balks? It could signal a dangerous erosion of due process rights, even in cases of life, liberty, and wrongful imprisonment abroad.

Bottom line: the Trump administration bet that it could bypass the Constitution using the Alien Enemies Act. The courts, so far, are making it clear that they cannot.

Get ready for more late-night emergency orders. The summer showdown for American democracy is just beginning. Thanks to MeidasTouch for this reporting.