We envision this as a companion series to “Today’s Outrage.” The positive should be accentuated too, and people who do the right thing should be acknowledged.
1: The Supreme Court Blocks a Deportation
Many of us have not exactly been thrilled about the Court’s behavior over the last few years, not only because of some extremely conservative decisions, but because of what has sometimes seemed to be the Court’s complicity with Trumpism. This was most conspicuous in 2024’s Trump v. United States, which granted former presidents sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” – a very vaguely-defined term – and appeared to give Trump a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
That decision made many of us worry about whether the Supreme Court still believed in the rule of law. It was disturbing to have to pose the question. If there is one entity in the government – indeed, one entity in the world – to whom we would expect the rule of law to be most sacrosanct, it would be the Supreme Court of the United States. That was why the Founders created a Supreme Court: to affirm and demonstrate that we are a government of laws, not men. We don’t have kings. We don’t have dictators. We have public servants, including a chief executive, who must work within the law.
In the first three months of his second term, Donald Trump has seemed inclined to govern not by law, but by decree. He has shown no interest in, or patience with, attempts to get bills through Congress, even a Congress controlled by his own party. Instead, he has, to date, signed 129 Executive Orders, or a bit more than 40 per month. For purposes of comparison, Joe Biden, during his term, averaged 40 per year. Barack Obama averaged 35 per year. The previous modern president most inclined to use Executive Orders was Jimmy Carter, who averaged 80 per year. Donald Trump is using Executive Orders in an unprecedented way, and at an unprecedented rate.
This pattern of bypassing the law includes ignoring court orders. In March, the Federal judge James Boasberg verbally ordered that hundreds of Venezuelan migrants who were being deported to CECOT, a notoriously brutal Salvadoran prison, had been denied due process, and had to be brought back to the United States even if officials had to “turn a plane around.” Officials did not turn a plane around, and those deportees are currently rotting in CECOT. 75% of them have no criminal record, and the law under which they were deported, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, is only supposed to be used in times of war. Judge Boasberg says he has received no satisfactory explanation for why his order was disregarded, and is currently investigating the administration for contempt of court.
So where’s the win? The win is that on the evening of Saturday, April 19th, by a 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court voted to temporarily block the deportation under the Alien Enemies Act of other Venezuelans currently being held in Texas. The order came in response to a plea from the American Civil Liberties Union, which had information that people were being loaded onto buses, in defiance of guidelines the Court had previously laid down.
Before last night, the Court seemed to be extremely cautious about confronting the Trump Administration, even when it treated the law most cavalierly. Last night, they looked like they’d gotten the message. This is a president who doesn’t respect the law. This is a president who doesn’t obey the law. For the first time, the Court has unequivocally declared that he must. We will see how things play out. But the majority, which includes three Trump appointees, deserves credit for doing the right thing.
If our democracy does survive this unprecedented threat, it will be because judges and military officers, deep in their cores, hold certain things to be sacred. Last night was a test, and the justices passed.