Summary
Shortly after midnight early Saturday morning, the Supreme Court handed down a brief order forbidding the Trump administration from removing a group of Venezuelan immigrants from the United States without due process.
The ACLU claims “dozens or hundreds” were allegedly given an English-language document, despite the fact that many of them only speak Spanish.
The Supreme Court ruled the government must give any immigrant “notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal.”
The Court’s one-paragraph order states that “the Government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order.”
Though it is just one order, Saturday’s post-midnight order suggests that the Court may no longer tolerate procedural shenanigans intended to evade meaningful judicial review.
Actually prosecuting a sitting president was always nearly impossible. The immunity thing has to do with what happens after the president is no longer in office, doesn’t it? Also, he only has absolute immunity for official acts. So then the question is what constitutes an official act.
And realistically the Supreme Court will eventually reverse itself, assuming that the democracy somewhat survives another decade, which is a good question. Because their ruling about absolute immunity just made no sense. But even if you think it did make sense, there are so many cases that have to go to court to be resolved. If the courts rule against a specific action and the president reads the court order and then does the bad action anyway, does it count as official? I think we can argue that it doesn’t, because the courts specifically clarified that it’s not allowed. But the president’s attorneys would argue the opposite. So then it has to go back to the Supreme Court.
Assuming Trump stays in good health long enough to leave the White House, I think it’s unavoidable that the above situation will occur.