What the Supreme Court Got Wrong About Habeas Petitions
In the days since the Supreme Court’s ruling, district judges have acted quickly to respond to habeas petitions. This week, judges in Texas and New York blocked the deportations of Venezuelan men alleged by the Trump administration to be connected to the Tren de Aragua gang. In Manhattan, a district judge temporarily blocked the deportation of two Venezuelan men currently held in Orange County, New York. The case in Texas had been brought on behalf of the men who had initially challenged their deportation in district court in Washington, D.C., who had been ordered to re-file their habeas petitions in the jurisdiction where they were being held.
In Texas, District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., appointed by Trump during his first term, temporarily blocked the administration from removing the three Venezuelan men from the El Valle Detention Center, as well as any other individual subject to deportation under Trump’s order to remove Venezuelans with alleged ties to Tren de Aragua. Rodriguez wrote in his order that if these Venezuelans were deported, it would “cause immediate and irreparable injury to the removed individuals, as they would be unable to seek habeas relief.”
Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, said that filing a habeas petition embodies the “ultimate core right” to due process. “The fact that the court rulings now from the Supreme Court and working their way up through the system are allowing for, or let’s say reaffirming and validating, that basic right, is certainly important, because some of the actions the Trump administration have been taking have been done in a way that doesn’t take that into account,” said Meissner.