1 week Ago By Editorial Board
Justice and Chief Justice have finally given in. On Monday, they agreed to place a hold on orders from activist district court judges who went too far in commanding the return of violent, illegal alien gang members dispatched to a Central American prison. The unsigned Supreme Court opinion found that U.
S. District Court Judge James “turn the planes around” Boasberg should not have even heard the case he certified as a class action on behalf of terrorists. The majority, which didn’t include Justice Barrett, explained that individual gang members should have sued where they were detained.
However, the left-wing groups behind the lawsuits didn’t want to file in Texas, where judges aren’t as pliable as the ones in the District of Columbia or Maryland. Next, the justices turned to Judge Paula Xinis, an appointee of President Obama, who insisted that the U.S.
government break Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen, out of a Salvadoran prison. In 2019, a U.S.
immigration judge determined that Mr. Abrego-Garcia was a dangerous MS-13 gang member subject to deportation to any country other than El Salvador. President Trump sent him to his home country last month.
Judge Xinis ordered the man’s return to the United States by midnight Monday. Justice Department attorneys sprinted as fast as they could to the steps of the Supreme Court to hand Chief Justice Roberts a plea for relief. His honor likely found the government’s argument persuasive.
It said: “While the United States concedes that removal to El Salvador was an administrative error, that does not license district courts to seize control over foreign relations, treat the Executive Branch as a subordinate diplomat, and demand that the United States let a member of a foreign terrorist organization into America tonight.” For weeks, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice have been the lone Republican-appointed holdouts, refusing to intervene against the outbreak of nationwide injunctions. The judicial duo preferred to wait while the legal process played out in regular order.
This was unwise, as the district court judges proved incapable of wielding a gavel without adult supervision. Justice was the first to crack. On Friday, she broke from the chief justice and joined the conservatives in reversing a federal judge in Massachusetts who instructed administration officials to bankroll President Biden’s educational initiatives in perpetuity.
Judge Myong J. Joun, one of Mr. Biden’s appointees, claimed eight blue states faced irreparable injury from the termination of two diversity, equity and inclusion-laden grant programs known as TQP and SEED.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson played up the drama over federal funding loss in her dissent, writing, “Apparently not content to insert itself into this action for no reason, the majority goes further, seizing on this opportunity.” That opportunity was setting down a few rules that should allow the appellate process to play out calmly without inferior court judges with oversized egos seizing an opportunity to boss around the president. The high court majority endorsed several Justice Department positions that the inferior court judges summarily dismissed.
Here, the grants are a contract issue that should be resolved by the Court of Federal Claims, not a federal district court in a conveniently liberal jurisdiction. Presumably, the conservative justices hope this set of rebukes discourages further abuse of the process, but there are no guarantees. At least Chief Justice Roberts and Justice now realize inaction sometimes makes more of a mess than one swift intervention.
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