A noted conservative journalist and broadcaster said last week that a key Supreme Court justice could be “on the thinnest of ice” should he decide against allowing President Donald Trump to use his executive authority to invoke a centuries-old law to quickly deport suspected foreign gang members who are in the country illegally.
During a segment last week, SiriusXM star Megyn Kelly openly fretted about how Chief Justice John Roberts could be the one conservative on the bench who would side against the president, especially after Roberts uncharacteristically took the president to task earlier this month in a public statement rebuking his call to impeach a lower court judge at the center of the case.
In a series of rulings over the past few weeks, Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court of Washington D.C. has issued- and extended- temporary restraining orders halting the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang members to a high-security prison in El Salvador.
Trump has argued that after designating members of the gang as terrorists, he has the authority to invoke the law, passed in 1798, to rapidly deport them without court hearings and other due process considerations.
Other legal experts have argued that the Supreme Court examined the law following its invocation during World War II and ruled in 1947 that not only do presidents have absolute authority under the statute, but their actions cannot be challenged by any court, including the nation’s highest court.
Nevertheless, Kelly told political analyst Mark Halperin that she believes Roberts could be leaning towards siding against Trump.
“John Roberts, above all, knows if he hands down a ruling telling the commander-in-chief that the nine men and women in black robes have the final say over what is perceived as a military threat unleashed on us by a foreign government, he’s on the thinnest of possible ice,” the host said. “He’s so obsessed with the court. I just can’t see him wanting to do it.”
Halperin said that he believes the Supreme Court decision could favor the president even though, on occasion, Roberts votes against Republicans.
“Well, he [Roberts] is an interesting figure because he does vote sometimes against Republican presidents, including this one,” the analyst said. “He does care about the integrity of the court, the reputation of the court … I think that they’re going to rule some against the president in some form, and there are going to be some that are result-oriented. They don’t all rule on the merits, sad to say.”
“I think in this case and in the ones that are comparable, as you suggested, as has been mentioned, deference to the commander-in-chief on this stuff is something where there’s clearly popular will. You can find that. You don’t need to look outside the walls of the Constitution to find that,” Halperin added.
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“They’ll probably vote with the president on this one. But, Roberts has got to expedite these things,” he added. “It doesn’t make any sense for America to not expedite them. These should be on the fastest of tracks. They should be on a track like Bush v. Gore, not treated at all like normal cases, because it’s a campaign promise and it’s happening now.”
Earlier on Friday, Boasberg extended his temporary restraining order to halt deportation flights. The order was set to expire on March 29, but Boasberg extended it to April 12, “or until further order of the Court,” Newsweek reported.
“The continued interference by an unelected activist judge in the foreign policy of the United States is a clear obstruction of President Trump’s constitutional authority and threatens the safety and security of all Americans,” a spokesperson for the Department of Justice told Newsweek.