Trump v. J. G. G.

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 1

Per Curiam

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 24A931

_________________

DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED

STATES, ET AL. v. J. G. G., ET AL.

ON APPLICATION TO VACATE THE ORDERS ISSUED BY

THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

[April 7, 2025]

PER CURIAM.

This matter concerns the detention and removal of Vene-

zuelan nationals believed to be members of Tren de Aragua

(TdA), an entity that the State Department has designated

as a foreign terrorist organization. See 90 Fed. Reg. 10030

(2025). The President issued Proclamation No. 10903, in-

voking the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), Rev. Stat. §4067, 50

U. S. C. §21, to detain and remove Venezuelan nationals

“who are members of TdA.” Invocation of the Alien Ene-

mies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United States by

Tren de Aragua, 90 Fed. Reg. 13034. Five detainees and a

putative class sought injunctive and declaratory relief

against the implementation of, and their removal under,

the Proclamation. Initially, the detainees sought relief in

habeas among other causes of action, but they dismissed

their habeas claims. On March 15, 2025, the District Court

for the District of Columbia issued two temporary restrain-

ing orders (TROs) preventing any removal of the named

plaintiffs and preventing removal under the AEA of a pro-

visionally certified class consisting of “[a]ll noncitizens in

U.S. custody who are subject to” the Proclamation. Minute

Order on Motion To Certify Class in No. 25−cv−00766. On

March 28, the District Court extended the TROs for up to

an additional 14 days. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 65(b)(2).

2 TRUMP v. J. G. G.

Per Curiam

The D. C. Circuit denied the Government’s emergency mo-

tion to stay the orders. The Government then applied to

this Court, seeking vacatur of the orders. We construe

these TROs as appealable injunctions. See Carson v. Amer-

ican Brands, Inc., 450 U. S. 79, 84 (1981).

We grant the application and vacate the TROs. The de-

tainees seek equitable relief against the implementation of

the Proclamation and against their removal under the AEA.

They challenge the Government’s interpretation of the Act

and assert that they do not fall within the category of re-

movable alien enemies. But we do not reach those argu-

ments. Challenges to removal under the AEA, a statute

which largely “ ‘preclude[s] judicial review,’ ” Ludecke v.

Watkins, 335 U. S. 160, 163−164, (1948), must be brought

in habeas. Cf. Heikkila v. Barber, 345 U. S. 229, 234−235

(1953) (holding that habeas was the only cause of action

available to challenge deportation under immigration stat-

utes that “preclud[ed] judicial intervention” beyond what

was necessary to vindicate due process rights). Regardless

of whether the detainees formally request release from con-

finement, because their claims for relief “ ‘necessarily imply

the invalidity’ ” of their confinement and removal under the

AEA, their claims fall within the “core” of the writ of habeas

corpus and thus must be brought in habeas. Cf. Nance v.

Ward, 597 U. S. 159, 167 (2022) (quoting Heck v. Humph-

rey, 512 U. S. 477, 487 (1994)). And “immediate physical

release [is not] the only remedy under the federal writ of

habeas corpus.” Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U. S. 54, 67 (1968); see,

e.g., Nance, 597 U. S., at 167 (explaining that a capital pris-

oner may seek “to overturn his death sentence” in habeas

by “analog[y]” to seeking release); In re Bonner, 151 U. S.

242, 254, 259 (1894). For “core habeas petitions,” “jurisdic-

tion lies in only one district: the district of confinement.”

Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U. S. 426, 443 (2004). The detain-

ees are confined in Texas, so venue is improper in the Dis-

trict of Columbia. As a result, the Government is likely to

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 3

Per Curiam

succeed on the merits of this action.

The detainees also sought equitable relief against sum-

mary removal. Although judicial review under the AEA is

limited, we have held that an individual subject to deten-

tion and removal under that statute is entitled to “ ‘judicial

review’ ” as to “questions of interpretation and constitution-

ality” of the Act as well as whether he or she “is in fact an

alien enemy fourteen years of age or older.” Ludecke, 335

U. S., at 163−164, 172, n. 17. (Under the Proclamation, the

term “alien enemy” is defined to include “all Venezuelan cit-

izens 14 years of age or older who are members of TdA, are

within the United States, and are not actually naturalized

or lawful permanent residents of the United States.” 90

Fed. Reg. 13034.) The detainees’ rights against summary

removal, however, are not currently in dispute. The Gov-

ernment expressly agrees that “TdA members subject to re-

moval under the Alien Enemies Act get judicial review.”

Reply in Support of Application To Vacate 1. “It is well es-

tablished that the Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due

process of law” in the context of removal proceedings. Reno

v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292, 306 (1993). So, the detainees are

entitled to notice and opportunity to be heard “appropriate

to the nature of the case.” Mullane v. Central Hanover

Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 313 (1950). More specifi-

cally, in this context, AEA detainees must receive notice af-

ter the date of this order that they are subject to removal

under the Act. The notice must be afforded within a rea-

sonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to

actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such

removal occurs.

For all the rhetoric of the dissents, today’s order and per

curiam confirm that the detainees subject to removal orders

under the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity to

challenge their removal. The only question is which court

will resolve that challenge. For the reasons set forth, we

4 TRUMP v. J. G. G.

Per Curiam

hold that venue lies in the district of confinement. The dis-

sents would have the Court delay resolving that issue, re-

quiring—given our decision today—that the process begin

anew down the road. We see no benefit in such wasteful

delay.

The application to vacate the orders of the United States

District Court for the District of Columbia presented to THE

CHIEF JUSTICE and by him referred to the Court is

granted. The March 15, 2025 minute orders granting a

temporary restraining order and March 28, 2025 extension

of the United States District Court for the District of Co-

lumbia, case No. 1:25-cv-766, are vacated.

It is so ordered.

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 1

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 24A931

_________________

DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED

STATES, ET AL. v. J. G. G., ET AL.

ON APPLICATION TO VACATE THE ORDERS ISSUED BY

THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

[April 7, 2025]

JUSTICE KAVANAUGH, concurring.

I agree with the Court’s per curiam opinion. Importantly,

as the Court stresses, the Court’s disagreement with the

dissenters is not over whether the detainees receive judicial

review of their transfers—all nine Members of the Court

agree that judicial review is available. The only question is

where that judicial review should occur. That venue

question turns on whether these transfer claims belong in

habeas corpus proceedings or instead may be brought under

the Administrative Procedure Act. I agree with the Court’s

analysis that the claims must be brought in habeas.

I add only that the use of habeas for transfer claims is not

novel. In the extradition context and with respect to

transfers of Guantanamo and other wartime detainees,

habeas corpus proceedings have long been the appropriate

vehicle. See LoBue v. Christopher, 82 F. 3d 1081, 1082

(CADC 1996); Kiyemba v. Obama, 561 F. 3d 509, 512–513

(CADC 2009). That general rule holds true for claims under

the Alien Enemies Act, the statute under which the

Government is seeking to remove these detainees. See

Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U. S. 160, 163, 171, and n. 17

(1948). And going back to the English Habeas Corpus Act

of 1679, if not earlier, habeas corpus has been the proper

vehicle for detainees to bring claims seeking to bar their

2 TRUMP v. J. G. G.

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring

transfers. See Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, 31 Car. 2, c. 2,

§§11–12.

Especially given the history and precedent of using

habeas corpus to review transfer claims, and given 5

U. S. C. §704, which states that claims under the APA are

not available when there is another “adequate remedy in a

court,” I agree with the Court that habeas corpus, not the

APA, is the proper vehicle here.

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 1

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 24A931

_________________

DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED

STATES, ET AL. v. J. G. G., ET AL.

ON APPLICATION TO VACATE THE ORDERS ISSUED BY

THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

[April 7, 2025]

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE KAGAN and

JUSTICE JACKSON join, and with whom JUSTICE BARRETT

joins as to Parts II and III–B, dissenting.

Three weeks ago, the Federal Government started send-

ing scores of Venezuelan immigrants detained in the

United States to a foreign prison in El Salvador. It did so

without any due process of law, under the auspices of the

Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law designed for times of war.

Between the start of these removals and now, a District

Court has been expeditiously considering the legal claims

of a group of detainees (hereafter plaintiffs), who allege that

their summary removal violates the Constitution and mul-

tiple statutes. The District Court ordered a pause on plain-

tiffs’ removals until it could consider their motion for a pre-

liminary injunction at a hearing tomorrow, on April 8. Still,

a majority of the Court sees fit to speak to this issue today.

Critically, even the majority today agrees, and the Fed-

eral Government now admits, that individuals subject to re-

moval under the Alien Enemies Act are entitled to adequate

notice and judicial review before they can be removed. That

should have been the end of the matter. Yet, with “bare-

bones briefing, no argument, and scarce time for reflection,”

Department of Education v. California, 604 U. S. ___, ___

2 TRUMP v. J. G. G.

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

(2025) (KAGAN, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 2), the Court an-

nounces that legal challenges to an individual’s removal un-

der the Alien Enemies Act must be brought in habeas peti-

tions in the district where they are detained.

The Court’s legal conclusion is suspect. The Court inter-

venes anyway, granting the Government extraordinary re-

lief and vacating the District Court’s order on that basis

alone. It does so without mention of the grave harm Plain-

tiffs will face if they are erroneously removed to El Salvador

or regard for the Government’s attempts to subvert the ju-

dicial process throughout this litigation. Because the Court

should not reward the Government’s efforts to erode the

rule of law with discretionary equitable relief, I respectfully

dissent.

I

A

This case arises out of the President’s unprecedented

peacetime invocation of a wartime law known as the Alien

Enemies Act. See Act of July 6, 1798, ch. 66, 1 Stat. 577.

Enacted in 1798 by a Congress consumed with fear of war

with France, the Alien Enemies Act provided a wartime

counterpart to the widely denounced Alien Friends Act,

which granted the President sweeping power to detain and

expel any noncitizen he deemed “dangerous to the peace

and safety of the United States.” Act of June 25, 1798, 1

Stat. 571. Unlike the Alien Friends Act, which lapsed in

disrepute as James Madison deemed it “a monster that

must for ever disgrace its parents,” the Founders saw the

Alien Enemies Act as a constitutional exercise of Congress’s

powers to “declare War,” to “raise and support Armies,” and

to “provide for calling forth the Militia to . . . suppress In-

surrections and repel Invasions.” U. S. Const., Art. I, §8,

cls. 11–15.1

——————

1 Letter from J. Madison to T. Jefferson (May 20, 1798), in 30 Papers

of Thomas Jefferson 358 (B. Oberg ed. 2003); see also Madison’s Report

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 3

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

To that end, the Act grants the President power to detain

and remove foreign citizens of a “hostile nation or govern-

ment” when “there is a declared war” with such nation or

when a “foreign nation” threatens “invasion or predatory

incursion” against the territory of the United States. Rev.

Stat. §4067, 50 U. S. C. §21. Before today, U. S. Presidents

have invoked the Alien Enemies Act only three times, each

in the context of an ongoing war: the War of 1812, World

War I, and World War II.2

That changed on March 14, 2025, when President Trump

invoked the Alien Enemies Act to address an alleged “Inva-

sion of the United States by Tren De Aragua,” a criminal

organization based in Venezuela. See Invocation of the Al-

ien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United

States by Tren de Aragua, Proclamation No. 10903, 90 Fed.

Reg. 13033. There is, of course, no ongoing war between the

United States and Venezuela. Nor is Tren de Aragua itself

a “foreign nation.” §21. The President’s Proclamation

nonetheless asserts that Tren de Aragua is “undertaking

hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against

the territory of the United States both directly and at the

direction . . . of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.” 90 Fed.

Reg. 13034. Based on these findings, the Proclamation de-

clares that “all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older

who are members of [Tren de Aragua]” and are not “natu-

ralized [citizens] or lawful permanent residents” are liable

to “immediate apprehension, detention, and removal” as al-

ien enemies. Ibid.

——————

on the Virginia Resolution, in The Book of the Constitution 52 (E. Wil-

liams ed. 1833).

2 Lockington v. Smith, 15 F. Cas. 758, 758–759 (No. 8,448) (CC Pa.

1817) (discussing the War of 1812 proclamation); Declaring the Exist-

ence of a State of War With the German Empire and Setting Forth Reg-

ulations Prescribing Conduct Toward Alien Enemies, Proclamation No.

1364, 40 Stat. 1650 (World War I); Alien Enemies—Japanese, Proclama-

tion No. 2525, 55 Stat. 1700 (World War II).

4 TRUMP v. J. G. G.

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

Congress requires the President to “mak[e] public procla-

mation” of his intention to invoke the Alien Enemies Act.

§21. President Trump did just the opposite. In what can

be understood only as covert preparation to skirt both the

requirements of the Act and the Constitution’s guarantee of

due process, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

began moving Venezuelan migrants from Immigration and

Customs Enforcement detention centers across the country

to the El Valle Detention Facility in South Texas before the

President had even signed the Proclamation. ___ F. Supp.

3d ___, ___ 2025 WL 890401, *3 (D DC, Mar. 24, 2025). The

transferred detainees, most of whom denied past or present

affiliation with any gang, did not know the reason for their

transfer until the evening of Friday, March 14, when they

were apparently “pulled from their cells and told that they

would be deported the next day to an unknown destina-

tion.” Ibid.

B

Suspecting that the President had covertly signed a Proc-

lamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act, several lawyers

anticipated their clients’ imminent deportation and filed a

putative class action in the District of Columbia. App. to

Brief in Opposition To Application To Vacate 9a (App. to

BIO). They contested that Tren de Aragua had committed

or attempted the kind of “ ‘invasion’ ” or “ ‘predatory incur-

sion’ ” required to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. Ibid. They

also asserted that it would violate the Due Process Clause

to deport their clients before they had any chance to chal-

lenge the Government’s allegations of gang membership.

Id., at 26a. The plaintiffs did not seek release from custody,

but asked the court only to restrain the Government’s

planned deportations under the Proclamation. Id., at 9a,

29a.

In the early morning of March 15, the District Court in-

formed the Government of the lawsuit and scheduled an

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 5

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

emergency hearing. Despite knowing of plaintiffs’ claim

that it would be unlawful to remove them under the Proc-

lamation, the Government ushered the named plaintiffs

onto planes along with dozens of other detainees, all with-

out any opportunity to contact their lawyers, much less no-

tice or opportunity to be heard. See 2025 WL 890401, *5;

see also, e.g., Decl. of G. Carney in No. 25–cv–00766 (D DC,

Mar. 19, 2025), ECF Doc. 44–11, at 2.

The Government’s plan, it appeared, was to rush plain-

tiffs out of the country before a court could decide whether

the President’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was

lawful or whether these individuals were, in fact, members

of Tren de Aragua. Plaintiff J. G. G., for example, had no

chance to tell a court that the tattoos causing DHS to sus-

pect him of gang membership were unrelated to a gang.

Decl. of J. G. G., ECF Doc. 3–3, at 1. He avers that he is a

tattoo artist who “got [an] eye tattoo because [he] saw it on

Google” and “thought it looked cool.” Ibid. Plaintiff G. F. F.,

too, was denied the chance to inform a court that the Gov-

ernment accused him of being an “associate/affiliate of Tren

d[e] Aragua” based solely on his presence at a party of

strangers, which he attended at the “insistence of a friend.”

Decl. of G. Carney, ECF Doc. 3–4, at 1.

C

Recognizing the emergency the Government had created

by deporting plaintiffs without due process, the District

Court issued a temporary restraining order that same

morning. The order prohibited the Government from re-

moving the five named plaintiffs, including J. G. G. and

G. F. F., pending ongoing litigation. G. F. F., who had been

“on a plane for about forty minutes to an hour” as “crying

and frightened” individuals were forced on board, was sub-

sequently retrieved from the plane by a guard who told him

he “ ‘just won the lottery.’ ” Decl. of G. Carney, ECF Doc.

44–11, at 3.

6 TRUMP v. J. G. G.

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

The court then set an emergency hearing for 5 p.m. that

same day, at which it planned to consider plaintiffs’ claim

that temporary relief should be extended to a class of all

noncitizens subject to the anticipated Proclamation. See

2025 WL 890401, *4. Despite notice to the Government of

the Court’s scheduled hearing, DHS continued to load up

the two planes with detainees and scheduled their immedi-

ate departure. See Tr. 12 (Mar. 15, 2025) (Two flights “were

scheduled for this afternoon that may have already taken

off or [will] during this hearing”); Tr. 9 (Apr. 3, 2025) (Gov-

ernment counsel agreeing that DHS was “acting in prepa-

ration of the proclamation before it was posted”). Not until

an hour before the District Court’s scheduled hearing, and

only moments before the Government planned to send its

planes off to El Salvador, did the White House finally pub-

lish the Proclamation on its website.

At its 5 p.m. hearing, the District Court provisionally cer-

tified a class of Venezuelan noncitizens subject to the Proc-

lamation. See Tr. 23, 25 (Mar. 15, 2025). It then issued an

oral temporary restraining order prohibiting the Govern-

ment from removing all members of the class pursuant to

the Proclamation for 14 days. Id., at 42. The order did not

disturb the Government’s ability to apprehend or detain in-

dividuals pursuant to the Proclamation or its authority to

deport any individual under the Immigration and Natural-

ization Act. See ibid.; see 2025 WL 890401, *1. All it re-

quired of the Government was a pause in deportations pur-

suant to the Proclamation until the court had a chance to

review their legality. See Tr. 4 (Apr. 3, 2025) (“All th[e]

[TROs] did was order that the government could not sum-

marily deport in-custody noncitizens who were subject to

the proclamation without a hearing”). The court further di-

rected that “any plane containing” individuals subject to the

Proclamation “that is going to take off or is in the air needs

to be returned to the United States.” Tr. 43 (Mar. 15, 2025).

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 7

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

D

Concerns about the Government’s compliance with the

order quickly followed. Even now, the District Court con-

tinues to investigate what happened via show-cause pro-

ceedings. In those proceedings, the Government took the

position that it had no legal obligation to obey the District

Court’s orders directing the return of planes in flight be-

cause they were issued from the bench. See Tr. 17 (Mar.

17, 2025) (“[O]ral statements are not injunctions”). Of

course, as the Government well knows, courts routinely is-

sue rulings from the bench, and those rulings can be ap-

pealed, including to this Court, in appropriate circum-

stances.3

The District Court, for its part, has surmised that “the

Government knew as of 10 a.m. on March 15 that the Court

would hold a hearing later that day,” yet it “hustled people

onto those planes in hopes of evading an injunction or per-

haps preventing [individuals] from requesting the habeas

hearing to which the Government now acknowledges they

are entitled.” 2025 WL 890401, *5. Rather than turn

around the planes that were in the air when the Court is-

sued its order, moreover, the Federal Government landed

the planes full of alleged Venezuelan nationals in El Salva-

dor and transferred them directly into El Salvador’s Center

for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT). Ibid.

Deportation directly into CECOT presented a risk of ex-

traordinary harm to these Plaintiffs. The record reflects

——————

3 See, e.g., United States v. Fruehauf, 365 U. S. 146, 154 (1961) (hear-

ing Government’s direct appeal from oral ruling); Evans v. Michigan, 568

U. S. 313, 320 (2013) (relying on lower court’s oral ruling); see also

Wright v. Continental Airlines Corp., 103 F. 3d 146 (CA10 1996) (Table)

(oral ruling was binding on parties); In re Justice, 172 F. 3d 876 (CA9

1999) (Table) (oral order was binding and effective even when written

order was never entered); Ueckert v. Guerra, 38 F. 4th 446, 451–452 (CA5

2022) (oral ruling final and appealable even where district court never

issued written judgment).

8 TRUMP v. J. G. G.

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

that inmates in Salvadoran prisons are “ ‘highly likely to

face immediate and intentional life-threatening harm at

the hands of state actors.’ ” Id., at *16 (quoting App. to BIO

258a). CECOT detainees are frequently “denied communi-

cation with their relatives and lawyers, and only appear be-

fore courts in online hearings, often in groups of several

hundred detainees at the same time.” App. to BIO 260a. El

Salvador has boasted that inmates in CECOT “ ‘will never

leave,’ ” ibid., and plaintiffs present evidence that “inmates

are rarely allowed to leave their cells, have no regular ac-

cess to drinking water or adequate food, sleep standing up

because of overcrowding, and are held in cells where they

do not see sunlight for days,” 2025 WL 890401, *16. One

scholar attests that an estimated 375 detainees have died

in Salvadoran prisons since March 2022. Ibid.

What if the Government later determines that it sent one

of these detainees to CECOT in error? Or a court eventu-

ally decides that the President lacked authority under the

Alien Enemies Act to declare that Tren de Aragua is perpe-

trating or attempting an “invasion” against the territory of

the United States? The Government takes the position

that, even when it makes a mistake, it cannot retrieve indi-

viduals from the Salvadoran prisons to which it has sent

them. See Defendant’s Memorandum of Law in Opposition

in Abrego Garcia v. Noem, No. 25–cv–951 (D Md., Mar. 31,

2025), ECF Doc. 11, at 7–9. The implication of the Govern-

ment’s position is that not only noncitizens but also United

States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto

planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity

for redress if judicial review is denied unlawfully before re-

moval. History is no stranger to such lawless regimes, but

this Nation’s system of laws is designed to prevent, not en-

able, their rise.

E

Even as the Government has continued to litigate

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 9

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

whether its March 15 deportations complied with the Dis-

trict Court’s orders, it simultaneously sought permission to

resume summary deportations under the Proclamation.

The District Court, first, denied the Government’s motion

to vacate its temporary restraining order, rejecting the as-

sertion that “the President’s authority and discretion under

the [Alien Enemies Act] is not a proper subject for judicial

scrutiny.” App. to BIO 71a. At the very least, the District

Court concluded, the plaintiffs were “likely to succeed” on

their claim that, “before they may be deported, they are en-

titled to individualized hearings to determine whether the

Act applies to them at all.” 2025 WL 890401, *2. The D. C.

Circuit, too, denied the Government a requested stay and

kept in place the District Court’s pause on deportations un-

der the Alien Enemies Act pending further proceedings.

2025 WL 914682, *1 (per curiam) (Mar. 26, 2025).

It is only this Court that sees reason to vacate, for the

second time this week, a temporary restraining order

standing “on its last legs.” Department of Education, 604

U. S., at ___ (JACKSON, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 1). Not

content to wait until tomorrow, when the District Court will

have a chance to consider full preliminary injunction brief-

ing at a scheduled hearing, this Court intervenes to relieve

the Government of its obligation under the order.

II

Begin with that upon which all nine Members of this

Court agree. The Court’s order today dictates, in no uncer-

tain terms, that “individual[s] subject to detention and re-

moval under the [Alien Enemies Act are] entitled to ‘judicial

review’ as to ‘questions of interpretation and constitution-

ality’ of the Act as well as whether he or she ‘is in fact an

alien enemy fourteen years of age or older.’ ” Ante, at 2

(quoting Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U. S. 160, 163–164, 172,

n. 17 (1948)). Therefore, under today’s order, courts below

10 TRUMP v. J. G. G.

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

will probe, among other things, the meaning of an “inva-

sion” or “predatory incursion,” 50 U. S. C. §21, and ask, for

example, whether any given individual is in fact a member

of Tren de Aragua. Even the Government has now largely

conceded that point. Application 19.

So too do we all agree with the per curiam’s command

that the Fifth Amendment requires the Government to af-

ford plaintiffs “notice after the date of this order that they

are subject to removal under the Act, . . . within reasonable

time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually

seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal

occurs.” Ante, at 3. That means, of course, that the Gov-

ernment cannot usher any detainees, including plaintiffs,

onto planes in a shroud of secrecy, as it did on March 15,

2025. Nor can the Government “immediately resume” re-

moving individuals without notice upon vacatur of the TRO,

as it promised the D. C. Circuit it would do. See 2025 WL

914682, *13 (Millett, J., concurring) (referencing oral argu-

ment before that court). To the extent the Government re-

moves even one individual without affording him notice and

a meaningful opportunity to file and pursue habeas relief,

it does so in direct contravention of an edict by the United

States Supreme Court.

III

In light of this agreement, the Court’s decision to inter-

vene in this litigation is as inexplicable as it is dangerous.

Recall that, when the District Court issued its temporary

restraining order on March 15, 2025, the Government was

engaged in a covert operation to deport dozens of immi-

grants without notice or an opportunity for hearings. The

Court’s ruling today means that those deportations violated

the Due Process Clause’s most fundamental protections.

See ante, at 3 (reiterating that notice and an opportunity

for a hearing are required before a deportation under the

Alien Enemies Act). The District Court rightly intervened

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 11

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

to prohibit temporarily the Government from deporting

more individuals in this manner, based on its correct as-

sessment that the plaintiffs were likely entitled to more

process. 2025 WL 890401, *2.

Against the backdrop of the U. S. Government’s unprece-

dented deportation of dozens of immigrants to a foreign

prison without due process, a majority of this Court sees fit

to vacate the District Court’s order. The reason, appar-

ently, is that the majority thinks plaintiffs’ claims should

have been styled as habeas actions and filed in the districts

of their detention. In reaching that result, the majority

flouts well-established limits on its jurisdiction, creates

new law on the emergency docket, and elides the serious

threat our intervention poses to the lives of individual de-

tainees.

A

As an initial matter, the Court lacks jurisdiction to re-

view the District Court’s time-limited, interlocutory order.

It is well established that, generally, “temporary restrain-

ing orders are not appealable.” 16 C. Wright, A. Miller, &

E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure §3922.1, p. 90

(3d ed. 2012). That rule is a general one because it gives

way where a temporary restraining order risks imposing

such an “ ‘irreparable . . . consequence’ ” that an immediate

appeal is necessary if the order is to be “ ‘effectually chal-

lenged’ ” at all. Carson v. American Brands, Inc., 450 U. S.

79, 84 (1981).

Here, the District Court ordered a 14-day halt on depor-

tations pursuant to the Proclamation (extended once for 14

additional days) because it thought the plaintiffs were

likely entitled to “individualized hearings to determine

whether the Act applies to them at all.” 2025 WL 890401,

*2. The Government now admits that it must provide de-

tainees with adequate notice, and it says they can then file

habeas petitions in the Southern District of Texas to contest

12 TRUMP v. J. G. G.

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

and stay their removal under the Alien Enemies Act. Such

proceedings, if adequately provided, necessarily mean that

the Government cannot imminently deport the Plaintiffs

under the Proclamation. So it is hard to see why the Dis-

trict Court’s temporary restraining order (of which only five

days now remain) presented the Government with an emer-

gency of any kind, much less one that required an immedi-

ate appeal.

B

Also troubling is this Court’s decision to vacate summar-

ily the District Court’s order on the novel ground that an

individual’s challenge to his removal under the Alien Ene-

mies Act “fall[s] within the ‘core’ of the writ of habeas cor-

pus” and must therefore be filed where the plaintiffs are de-

tained. Ante, at 2. The Court reaches that conclusion

without oral argument or the benefit of percolation in the

lower courts, and with just a few days of deliberation based

on barebones briefing.

This conclusion is dubious. As an initial matter, the ma-

jority’s assertion that plaintiffs’ claims “sound” in habeas is

in tension with this Court’s understanding of habeas corpus

as, at its core, an avenue for a person in custody to “attack

. . . the legality of that custody” and “to secure release from

illegal custody.” Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 484

(1973). The plaintiffs in this case sued not to challenge

their detention, but to protect themselves from summary

deportation pursuant to the Proclamation. Indeed, because

all of the plaintiffs were already in immigration detention

under other statutes when the Government subjected them

to the Proclamation, they “have repeatedly emphasized

throughout this litigation that they ‘do not seek release

from custody’ ” and are not “contesting the validity of their

confinement or seeking to shorten its duration.” 2025 WL

890401, *8.

Nevertheless, the majority insists that plaintiffs’ claims

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 13

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

“ ‘necessarily imply the invalidity’ ” of their confinement and

removal under the Act, and so essentially amount to a chal-

lenge to their present physical confinement. Ante, at 2. It

therefore analogizes this case to the line of cases beginning

with Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477 (1994), where the

Court held that individuals serving state criminal sen-

tences cannot bring 42 U. S. C. §1983 suits to complain of

“unconstitutional treatment at the hands of state officials”

if a judgment in their favor would “necessarily imply the

invalidity of his conviction or sentence.” 512 U. S., at 480,

487. In such cases, habeas is the exclusive avenue for relief.

Ibid. Plaintiffs’ claims, however, do not “imply the invalid-

ity of ” their detention, because their detention predated the

Proclamation and was unrelated to the Alien Enemies Act.

Thus, if they succeeded in showing that they could not be

removed under the Proclamation, that would not result in

their release from detention. Even in the context of §1983

challenges by criminal defendants, this Court has never

“recognized habeas as the sole remedy, or even an available

one, where the relief sought would ‘neither terminate cus-

tody, accelerate the future date of release from custody, nor

reduce the level of custody.’ ” Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U. S.

521, 534 (2011) (brackets omitted).

There is also good reason to doubt that Heck’s holding

about the availability of relief under §1983 extends to Ad-

ministrative Procedure Act (APA) claims challenging exec-

utive action under the Alien Enemies Act. The Heck bar

arose from the Court reading an “ ‘implicit exception’ ” into

§1983 to avoid “swamping the habeas statute’s coverage of

claims that the prisoner is ‘in custody in violation of the

Constitution.’ ” Nance v. Ward, 597 U. S. 159, 167 (2022)

(quoting 28 U. S. C. §2254(a)). This Court has never limited

the availability of APA relief so narrowly. To the contrary,

the APA has long been available to plaintiffs absent specific

preclusion by Congress. Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner,

387 U. S. 136, 141 (1967).

14 TRUMP v. J. G. G.

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

Although the APA allows courts to review only agency ac-

tion “for which there is no other adequate remedy in a

court,” 5 U. S. C. §704, this Court has long read that limi-

tation narrowly, emphasizing that it “should not be con-

strued to defeat the central purpose of providing a broad

spectrum of judicial review of agency action.” Bowen v.

Massachusetts, 487 U. S. 879, 903 (1988); see also Darby v.

Cisneros, 509 U. S. 137, 146 (1993) (“Congress intended by

that provision simply to avoid duplicating previously estab-

lished special statutory procedures for review of agency ac-

tions”). Indeed, in the mid-20th century, this Court repeat-

edly said that habeas and APA actions were both available

to noncitizens challenging their deportation orders. See

Brownell v. Tom We Shung, 352 U. S. 180, 181 (1956)

(“[E]ither remedy is available in seeking review of [depor-

tation] orders”); see also Shaughnessy v. Pedreiro, 349 U. S.

48, 50–51 (1955) (allowing for judicial review of a deporta-

tion order under the APA).

Against that backdrop, there is every reason to question

the majority’s hurried conclusion that habeas relief sup-

plies the exclusive means to challenge removal under the

Alien Enemies Act. At the very least, the question is a

thorny one, and this emergency application was not the

place to resolve it. Nor was it the Court’s last chance to

weigh in. The debate about habeas exclusivity remains on-

going in the District Court, in the context of pending pre-

liminary injunction proceedings. If the District Court were

to resolve the question in plaintiffs’ favor, the Government

could have appealed to this Court in the ordinary course,

and we could have decided it after thorough briefing and

oral argument. In its rush to decide the issue now, the

Court halts the lower court’s work and forces us to decide

the matter after mere days of deliberation and without ad-

equate time to weigh the parties’ arguments or the full rec-

ord of the District Court’s proceedings.

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 15

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

C

The majority’s rush to resolve the question is all the more

troubling because this is not one of those rare cases in which

the Court must immediately intervene “despite the risk” of

error attendant in deciding novel legal questions on the

emergency docket. Department of Education, 604 U. S., at

___, (KAGAN, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 2). Recall that the

dispute has now narrowed into a debate about “which pro-

cedural vehicle is best situated for the Plaintiffs’ injunctive

and declaratory claims”: individual habeas petitions filed in

district courts across the country or a class action filed in

the District of Columbia. 2025 WL 914682, *29 (Millett, J.,

concurring). The Government may well prefer to defend

against “300 or more individual habeas petitions” than face

this class APA case in Washington, D. C. Ibid. That is es-

pecially so because the Government can transfer detainees

to particular locations in an attempt to secure a more hos-

pitable judicial forum. But such a preference for defending

against one form of litigation over the other is far from the

kind of concrete and irreparable harm that requires this

Court to take the “ ‘extraordinary’ ” step of intervening at

this moment, while litigation in the lower courts remains

ongoing. Williams v. Zbaraz, 442 U. S. 1309, 1311 (1979)

(Stevens, J., in chambers); see Department of Education,

604 U. S., at ___ (JACKSON, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 8).

Meanwhile, funneling plaintiffs’ claims into individual

habeas actions across the Nation risks exposing them to se-

vere and irreparable harm. Rather than seeking to enjoin

implementation of the President’s Proclamation against all

Venezuelan nationals in immigration detention, detainees

scattered across the country must each obtain counsel and

file habeas petitions on their own accord, all without know-

ing whether they will remain in detention where they were

arrested or be secretly transferred to an alternative loca-

tion. Cf. Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., 527 U. S. 815, 860

(1999) (“One great advantage of class action treatment . . .

16 TRUMP v. J. G. G.

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

is the opportunity to save the enormous transaction costs of

piecemeal litigation”).

That requirement may have life or death consequences.

Individuals who are unable to secure counsel, or who cannot

timely appeal an adverse judgment rendered by a habeas

court, face the prospect of removal directly into the perilous

conditions of El Salvador’s CECOT, where detainees suffer

egregious human rights abuses. See supra, at 7–8. Anyone

the Government mistakenly deports in its piecemeal and

rushed implementation of the challenged Proclamation will

face the same grave risks. Cf. Defendant’s Memorandum of

Law in Opposition in Abrego Garcia v. Noem, No. 25–cv–

951 (D Md., Mar. 31, 2025), ECF Doc. 11, at 3.

The stakes are all the more obvious in light of the Gov-

ernment’s insistence that, once it sends someone to CECOT,

it cannot be made to retrieve them. Ibid. The Government

is at this very moment seeking emergency relief from an

order requiring it to facilitate the return of an individual

the Government concededly removed to CECOT “because of

an administrative error.” Id., at 5; see Emergency Motion

for Stay Pending Appeal and Immediate Administrative

Stay in Abrego Garcia v. Noem, No. 25–1345 (CA4, Apr. 5,

2025), ECF Doc. 3–1, at 2 (“No federal court has the power

to command the Executive to engage in a certain act of for-

eign relations . . .”). The Government’s resistance to facili-

tating the return of individuals erroneously removed to

CECOT only amplifies the specter that, even if this Court

someday declares the President’s Proclamation unlawful,

scores of individual lives may be irretrievably lost.

More fundamentally, this Court exercises its equitable

discretion to intervene without accounting for the Govern-

ment noncompliance that has permeated this litigation to

date. The maxim that “ ‘he who comes into equity must

come with clean hands’ ” has long guided this Court’s exer-

cise of equitable discretion. Precision Instrument Mfg. Co.

v. Automotive Maintenance Machinery Co., 324 U. S. 806,

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 17

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

814 (1945). While “ ‘equity does not demand that its suitors

shall have led blameless lives’ ” as to other matters, “it does

require that they shall have acted fairly and without fraud

or deceit as to the controversy in issue.” Id., at 814–815

(citing Keystone Driller Co. v. General Excavator Co., 290

U. S. 240, 245 (1933)).

Far from acting “fairly” as to the controversy in District

Court, the Government has largely ignored its obligations

to the rule of law. From the start, the Government sought

to avoid judicial review, “hustl[ing] people onto those

planes” without notice or public Proclamation apparently

“in the hopes of evading an injunction or perhaps prevent-

ing them from requesting the habeas hearing to which the

Government now acknowledges they are entitled.” 2025

WL 890401, *5. That the District Court is engaged in a sin-

cere inquiry into whether the Government willfully violated

its March 15, 2025, order to turn around the planes should

be reason enough to doubt that the Government appears

before this Court with clean hands. That is all the more

true because the Government has persistently stonewalled

the District Court’s efforts to find out whether the Govern-

ment in fact flouted its express order. See Tr. 4–5 (Mar. 15,

2025); Tr. 6–9 (Mar. 17, 2025).

* * *

The Government’s conduct in this litigation poses an ex-

traordinary threat to the rule of law. That a majority of this

Court now rewards the Government for its behavior with

discretionary equitable relief is indefensible. We, as a Na-

tion and a court of law, should be better than this. I re-

spectfully dissent.

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 1

JACKSON, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 24A931

_________________

DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED

STATES, ET AL. v. J. G. G., ET AL.

ON APPLICATION TO VACATE THE ORDERS ISSUED BY

THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

[April 7, 2025]

JUSTICE JACKSON, dissenting.

I join JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR’s dissent in full and would

deny the application for all the reasons she explains. I write

separately to question the majority’s choice to intervene on

the eve of the District Court’s preliminary-injunction hear-

ing without scheduling argument or receiving merits brief-

ing. This fly-by-night approach to the work of the Supreme

Court is not only misguided. It is also dangerous.

The President of the United States has invoked a centu-

ries-old wartime statute to whisk people away to a notori-

ously brutal, foreign-run prison. For lovers of liberty, this

should be quite concerning. Surely, the question whether

such Government action is consistent with our Constitution

and laws warrants considerable thought and attention from

the Judiciary. That was why the District Court issued a

temporary restraining order to prevent immediate harm to

the targeted individuals while the court considered the law-

fulness of the Government’s conduct. But this Court now

sees fit to intervene, hastily dashing off a four-paragraph

per curiam opinion discarding the District Court’s order

based solely on a new legal pronouncement that, one might

have thought, would require significant deliberation.

When this Court decides complex and monumental is-

sues, it typically allows the lower courts to address those

2 TRUMP v. J. G. G.

JACKSON, J., dissenting

matters first; it then receives full briefing, hears oral argu-

ment, deliberates internally, and, finally, issues a reasoned

opinion. Those standard processes may not always yield

correct results. But when we deviate from them, the risk of

error always substantially increases. Today’s rushed con-

clusion—that those challenging the Government’s action

can only pursue their claims through habeas—is Exhibit A.

I lament that the Court appears to have embarked on a

new era of procedural variability, and that it has done so in

such a casual, inequitable, and, in my view, inappropriate

manner. See Department of Education v. California, 604

U. S. ___ , ___ (2025) (JACKSON, J., dissenting) (slip op., at

1–2). At least when the Court went off base in the past, it

left a record so posterity could see how it went wrong. See,

e.g., Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214 (1944). With

more and more of our most significant rulings taking place

in the shadows of our emergency docket, today’s Court

leaves less and less of a trace. But make no mistake: We

are just as wrong now as we have been in the past, with

similarly devastating consequences. It just seems we are

now less willing to face it.