The Supreme Court explicitly ruled in the 1948 Ludecke v. Watkins case that Alien Enemy Act removals by the president are non-justiciable.
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) March 18, 2025
Here are some key excerpts from the ruling, lest anyone think the SCOTUS opinion was in any way unclear: “The Alien Enemy Act precludes… https://t.co/TBRzgmUrOx
The Supreme Court explicitly ruled in the 1948 Ludecke v. Watkins case that Alien Enemy Act removals by the president are non-justiciable.
Here are some key excerpts from the ruling, lest anyone think the SCOTUS opinion was in any way unclear: “The Alien Enemy Act precludes judicial review of the removal order.”
That line is literally the first sentence of the SCOTUS holding.
“The very nature of the President's power to order the removal of all enemy aliens rejects the notion that courts may pass judgment upon the exercise of his discretion.”
“[E]very judge before whom the question has since come has held that the statute barred judicial review.”
“A war power of the President not subject to judicial review is not transmuted into a judicially reviewable action because the President chooses to have that power exercised within narrower limits than Congress authorized.”
“These are matters of political judgment for which judges have neither technical competence nor official responsibility.”
“The Act is almost as old as the Constitution, and it would savor of doctrinaire audacity now to find the statute offensive to some emanation of the Bill of Rights.”
“Accordingly, we hold that full responsibility for the just exercise of this great power may validly be left where the Congress has constitutionally placed it -- on the President of the United States. The Founders, in their wisdom, made him not only the Commander in Chief, but also the guiding organ in the conduct of our foreign affairs.”
There is no gray area or uncertainty here.
As the Supreme Court has made abundantly and explicitly clear, removals under the Alien Removal Act are non-justiciable. Because of this, it is the inferior and unelected district judge who is violating the law and the Constitution today by purporting to have the authority to review what the Supreme Court—his superior—has prohibited him from reviewing.
The proper form for this case to take, based on the Constitution, federal statutes, and 250 years of case law in this country, is for the judge to dismiss the plaintiffs’ case for lack of jurisdiction and standing. Plaintiffs can of course appeal that dismissal, at which point the appellate court would be required to reject the appeal. And if plaintiffs wished to do so at that point, they could apply for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court, which would then decide whether it wished to overturn its own precedents. Only the Supreme Court has the authority to undertake such an action. And even if that were to happen, the president still retains inherent Article II authority, independent of federal statute, to remove foreign enemies from the United States.
That is how the legal system in this country actually works. It does not in any way empower an inferior trial court judge to unilaterally overturn controlling federal law or Supreme Court precedents.
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