Supreme Court bars the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act

VPM | By Eric Westervelt, Scott Simon and Ximena Bustillo

Published May 17, 2025 at 12:47 PM EDT

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

President Trump has taken a sweeping approach to immigration policy. His goal is to speed up the rate of arrests and deportations, but that goal is encountering obstacles in the U.S. Supreme Court. NPR immigration reporter Ximena Bustillo has been covering it and joins us in our studios. Ximena, thanks so much for being with us.

XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Good morning.

SIMON: Yesterday, the court issued its latest order on Trump’s immigration policies. This is related to the Alien Enemies Act. What did they say?

BUSTILLO: The Supreme Court issued a preliminary injunction which extends the pause on deportations of Venezuelan immigrants in North Texas via the use of the Alien Enemies Act. Earlier this year, Trump invoked that rarely used wartime power in order to streamline deportations, but the Supreme Court had already ruled that the government has to give immigrants a chance to contest their deportations under this act. Lawyers on behalf of Venezuelans held at a Texas detention facility moved to quickly stop their clients’ removals when they learned that they had only received hours’ notice that they were about to be removed using the Alien Enemies Act.

The Supreme Court said in its Friday order that it meant to preserve its jurisdiction over the case while letting lower courts decide just how much notice should be given to people the government wants to quickly remove using this power. But the court did not directly address the larger question of whether Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act at all was legal.

SIMON: The Trump administration has criticized federal judges who’ve taken steps to block its policies. The president’s even called for their impeachment. How did he respond to this latest order?

BUSTILLO: In a post to his social media site, Truth Social, Trump said, quote, “the Supreme Court will not allow us to get criminals out of our country,” end quote. And one of the biggest, strongest rebukes of the Supreme Court specifically, Trump explicitly said that he believes that the court is not allowing him to do what he was elected to do on immigration. He complained that the court is forcing his administration to go through what he called a long, protracted and expensive legal process to deport migrants in the country. But the decision from the Supreme Court shows that they think it’s not that simple. The justices point out that once detainees are placed into custody of another government, officials tell the court that the courts can’t provide any relief if there are errors.

SIMON: Justices also heard arguments related to questions about birthright citizenship. How did these play out?

BUSTILLO: On his first day in office, you might remember Trump issued an executive order to reinterpret the 14th Amendment, stating that being born in the U.S. does not guarantee automatic citizenship if your parents do not have legal status or are here on a temporary basis. Most of the Supreme Court arguments focused on whether judges should be allowed to issue universal injunctions and broadly stop a president’s policies. But the bigger stakes of Trump’s immigration plans are not lost on the court. During oral arguments, conservative Brett Kavanaugh really questioned DOJ attorneys over exactly how the government was supposed to manage and oversee babies born without citizenship in the U.S., and government lawyers said they didn’t know.

SIMON: Elsewhere, Ximena, the White House is putting off complying with the orders of two federal judges on big immigration cases. One of those judges again took the administration to task yesterday. Please, tell us.

BUSTILLO: Well, Maryland federal Judge Paula Xinis increasingly is growing exasperated by the government’s efforts to not provide information on whether it is facilitating the release and return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Abrego Garcia is a man who lived in Maryland and was deported to El Salvador by error, and the administration has said that this was an administrative error. Xinis has asked the government to explain exactly what steps it has taken, but she says that the government continues to stonewall in, quote, “bad faith.” And it’s been more than a month since even the Supreme Court agreed with Xinis that the government needs to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

In a hearing also on Friday, the – a judge – a Justice Department lawyer tried invoking a state secrets privilege to withhold information on these steps, but Judge Xinis is skeptical of that argument, saying she simply just hasn’t been given enough information to determine whether the government’s efforts to free Abrego Garcia from El Salvador should be covered by national security concerns.

SIMON: NPR’s Ximena Bustillo. Thanks so much.

BUSTILLO: Thanks, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Eric Westervelt

Eric Westervelt is a San Francisco-based correspondent for NPR's National Desk. He has reported on major events for the network from wars and revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa to historic wildfires and terrorist attacks in the U.S.

For a decade as a foreign correspondent, Westervelt served as NPR reporter and bureau chief in Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Berlin. He's covered the Pentagon, the war in Afghanistan, and the U.S. invasion and troubled occupation of Iraq, including the insurgency, sectarian violence, and the resulting social and political tumult.

He has reported on the ground from North Africa during revolutions there, including from Tahrir Square during fall of Egypt's Mubarak, the front lines during the civil war and NATO intervention in Libya, and the popular uprising in Tunisia. He's also reported from Yemen, the Arabian Gulf states, and the Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia, Djibouti, and the Somalia border region.

Westervelt was among the first western reporters to reach Baghdad during the 2003 U.S-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein embedded with the lead elements of the army's Third Infantry Division. He was also among the first western reporters to enter the Gaza Strip via Egypt during the 2008-2009 Israeli ground offensive in the coastal Palestinian enclave known as the Gaza War.

Westervelt has reported extensively across the U.S. on big stories and breaking news, from mass shootings to natural disasters and police use of force. He helped launch NPR's innovative, award-winning education platform NPR Ed, and serves as a guest host for NPR news shows.

Westervelt is currently helping to launch a collaborative team that covers America's criminal justice system, including issues and reform efforts surrounding prisons, policing, juvenile justice, and the courts.

He's been honored with broadcast journalism's highest honors, including the 2002 George Foster Peabody Award for coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the aftermath; the 2003 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award for coverage of Sept. 11 and the subsequent war in Afghanistan; and 2004 and 2007 DuPont-Columbia Awards for NPR's in-depth coverage of the war in Iraq and its effect on Iraqi society. Westervelt's 2009 multimedia series with the late NPR photojournalist David Gilkey won an Overseas Press Club Award. He also recently shared in an Edward R. Murrow RTNDA Award with NPR Ed for innovative education coverage.

In 2013, Westervelt returned to the U.S. from overseas as a visiting journalism fellow at Stanford University with the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship

As Jerusalem bureau chief, Westervelt covered the failed diplomatic efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and the social, political, and cultural news across Israel and the occupied West Bank. He reported from the front lines of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah known as the Second Lebanon War. He was on the ground for multiple Israeli-Hamas battles in the Gaza Strip and the Fatah-Hamas civil war and battle of Gaza City that led to the current political split within the Palestinian Authority.

While based in Berlin, Westervelt covered a broad range of news across the region, including the Euro debt crisis, the rise of far right nationalists, national elections, and more.

Prior to his Middle East assignments, Westervelt covered military affairs and the Pentagon out of Washington, DC, reporting on the major defense, national security, and foreign policy issues of the day. He began his work at NPR on the network's national desk where his coverage spanned the mass shooting at Columbine High School, the presidential vote recount following the 2000 election, and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks reporting from the Ground Zero recovery in New York City, among many other stories.

On the lighter side, Westervelt also produces occasional features for NPR's Arts Desk, including for the series American Anthem, as well as Rock Hall Award profiles of blues great Freddie King and an exploration of roots rock pioneer Roy Orbison for NPR's 50 Great Voices series. His feature on the making of John Coltrane's jazz classic "A Love Supreme" was part of NPR's project on the most influential American musical works of the 20th century, which was recognized with a Peabody Award.

Before joining NPR, Westervelt worked as a reporter in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, reported for the broadcast edition of the Christian Science Monitor, Monitor Radio, and worked as a news director and reporter in New Hampshire for NHPR.

Westervelt grew up in upstate New York. He's a graduate of the Putney School and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Reed College. He was a recipient in 2013 of a J.S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University.

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