Judges issue a warning on Trump's swift deportations: "Americans could be next"
Judges nationwide emphasize the crucial importance of safeguarding the rights of the most vulnerable and least popular individuals, warning that if these rights are not upheld, it poses a threat to everyone.
TroibNews 
A fundamental promise made by the founders of the United States — that no individual should face punishment from the state without a fair hearing — is increasingly at risk, according to a rising number of federal judges.
This principle of “due process under law,” which has its roots in the Magna Carta and is included in the Bill of Rights, appears to be most shaken for the immigrants that President Donald Trump aims to deport without due process, though U.S. citizens should also be concerned.
Judges across the nation, appointed by presidents from both parties, including Trump, are sounding alarms about what they view as a decline in due process resulting from the administration’s mass deportation policies. Initially targeted were groups Trump identified as “terrorists” and “gang members,” despite their strong denials. Judges warn this could quickly extend to other groups, including U.S. citizens.
“When the courts say due process is important, we're not unhinged, we're not radicals,” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Washington, D.C., appointee of President Joe Biden, remarked at a recent hearing. “We are literally trying to enforce a process embodied in probably the most significant document with respect to peoples' rights against tyrannical government oppression. That's what we're doing here. Okay?”
Judges are framing this issue as existential, grounded in the 5th Amendment’s assurance that “no person shall … be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.” The term “person,” courts have noted, does not differentiate between citizens and noncitizens. The Supreme Court has consistently held that this essential guarantee applies to immigrants in deportation proceedings. In a 1993 judgment, Justice Antonin Scalia described that principle as “well-established.”
The ongoing contention between the White House and the judiciary has obscured a steadily growing, nearly unanimous realization: If the rights of the most vulnerable are not safeguarded by the courts, everyone may face consequences.
“If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?” J. Harvie Wilkinson, a Ronald Reagan appointee to the Richmond-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, pondered. He labeled this an “incipient crisis,” yet also identified it as an opportunity to unite around the rule of law.
In response, Trump and his aides have pushed back against these due process concerns, deeming them exaggerated and impractical. They argue that Trump was elected to remove undocumented immigrants from the country, and that mandate should carry significant weight.
“Over 77 million Americans gave President Trump a resounding Election Day mandate to enforce our immigration laws and mass deport criminal illegal aliens,” stated White House spokesperson Kush Desai. “The Trump administration is using every power endowed to the Executive Branch by the Constitution and Congress, such as Expedited Removal, to deliver on this mandate.”
Stephen Miller, a close adviser to Trump, has vocally criticized what he terms a “judicial coup” that primarily focuses on rulings maintaining due process rights for immigrants. He has dismissed the idea that individuals Trump labels as terrorists – regardless of their denials – should be permitted to challenge their deportations, insisting that they merely have the right to be deported. Last Friday, Miller suggested that the White House was “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus, which allows individuals to contest their government detention.
During a recent Senate hearing, FBI Director Kash Patel expressed uncertainty about whether hundreds of Venezuelans deported to El Salvador in March had received due process.
“What you’re saying is that every single one of the illegals that was sent down to El Salvador is supposed to be given due process,” Patel said in a dialogue with Senator Jeff Merkley.
“That’s what the Constitution says,” replied Merkley.
“It doesn’t say that,” Patel countered.
Last week, Trump shared in an interview that he was uncertain whether the Constitution mandated him to observe due process rights for noncitizens, stating “I don’t know” when asked by NBC’s Kristen Welker. He mourned the significant burden that individual hearings for millions of deportees presented.
Trump reiterated this stance on Wednesday morning, proclaiming, “Our Court System is not letting me do the job I was Elected to do. Activist judges must let the Trump Administration deport murderers, and other criminals who have come into our Country illegally, WITHOUT DELAY!!!”
Despite these frustrations, administration officials assert they are upholding a constitutional level of due process for individuals being deported, even while contesting certain court rulings.
“Neither Congress nor the Founders intended for invading aliens to sit in court for years while their attorneys file frivolous motions,” stated Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security. “This is not what the Constitution requires, and the far left knows it. Given this, any reasonable person might wonder why foreign citizens who have broken our laws are entitled to constitutional protection at all.”
Judges across various levels have rejected that perspective.
The Supreme Court has reiterated the necessity of due process for individuals facing deportation by the Trump administration, countering Trump’s attempts to rapidly remove immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely enacted 1798 law intended to fast-track deportations during wartime. The high court took the unusual step of issuing a ruling at 1 a.m. last month, pausing a new wave of deportations under the Alien Enemies Act until further notice.
Appeals court judges have also expressed dissatisfaction with the administration’s interpretation of due process, specifically in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran who was expelled to his home country last March. The Supreme Court acknowledged that Garcia's deportation was “illegal” as it contravened a 2019 court order that prohibited the government from sending him back due to threats of violent persecution from a local gang. Although the administration recognized the mistake, officials claimed they lacked the authority to reinstate Garcia, while Trump and his aides framed him as a dangerous gang member, indicating that his deportation, although erroneous, was warranted.
“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” Wilkinson stated last month. “This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
Judges appointed by Trump have echoed similar concerns.
In Maryland, a Trump-appointed judge reprimanded the administration for contesting an effort to return another individual who had been sent to El Salvador in violation of a court-mandated settlement. The Justice Department contended that if he were returned to the U.S., he would undoubtedly be re-deported.
“Process is important. We don’t skip to the end and say, ‘We all know how this is going to end up,’” U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher remarked.
U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, also a Trump appointee in Louisiana, expressed a “strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process” regarding a two-year-old sent to Honduras.
While the alarm from the courts is rising, tensions concerning due process are not exclusive to the Trump administration. The executive branch has consistently expressed frustration toward due process rights, which are intended to prevent rapid governmental initiatives that could occur in a system without such safeguards.
“Of course, due process makes it harder for the government to do what it wants,” asserted Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the Berkeley School of Law. “That’s the whole point — to make sure that the government is acting in accord with the law.”
Several cases have been unfolding for months, with some, such as that of Abrego Garcia, gaining national traffic attention, while others have remained lesser-known. However, the tone from the judiciary remains consistent.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo, situated in Buffalo, New York, is overseeing the emergency petition for a Gambian national, Sering Ceesay, 63, who has resided in the Bronx for 30 years and has evaded deportation despite ongoing scrutiny from immigration authorities. Ceesay is under a deportation order that has been authorized by an immigration court for over a decade, but he has also been allowed to remain free while awaiting the conclusion of his case.
On February 19, following a routine check-in, ICE took Ceesay into custody unexpectedly. Vilardo ruled that Ceesay's detention was illegal based on multiple violations of laws and regulations: it was initiated by an unapproved official, he did not receive any notice, and he was deprived of an “informal interview” that ICE regulations demand.
He concluded that these failings required Ceesay’s immediate release from custody, even if re-detained under correct procedures later.
“When someone’s most basic right of freedom is taken away, that person is entitled to at least some minimal process; otherwise, we all are at risk to be detained — and perhaps deported — because someone in the government thinks we are not supposed to be here,” wrote Vilardo.
The Trump administration had argued that the court had no jurisdiction to intervene regarding its alleged procedural breaches because the likely outcome would be Ceesay’s deportation anyway.
“The government’s suggestion … is downright frightening,” Vilardo emphasized. “Procedure is not mere puffery, a gesture that is irrelevant so long as the result is correct.”
In Maryland, Gallagher faced a similar predicament. The Trump administration conceded it had deported a 20-year-old Venezuelan man, identified as Daniel Lozano-Camargo, to El Salvador despite the existence of a 2024 legal settlement prohibiting his deportation while seeking asylum.
However, the Trump administration opposed Gallagher’s order to request Lozano-Camargo’s return from El Salvador to ensure he could receive due process. Instead, Justice Department lawyers produced an unusual “indicative ruling” from immigration officials declaring that Lozano-Camargo would be ineligible for asylum even if he returned to the U.S. They argued that this determination negated the need to navigate the complex process of returning him.
Gallagher, referring to Lozano-Camargo as “Cristian,” a pseudonym utilized in court, rejected this argument outright.
"It may be that the result here for Cristian is no asylum. I think people following the news here for the last four months would not be surprised if that's the end result here,” Gallagher acknowledged during a recent hearing. “We don't just get to skip to the end. He gets to have a particular process and the claim for the process is not futile."
In Massachusetts, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy expressed disbelief at the administration’s assertion that it could deport individuals to any country without prior notice or the explicit approval from an immigration judge, so long as they were given general assurances they would not face torture.
“All nine sitting justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Assistant Solicitor General of the United States, Congress, common sense, basic decency, and this Court all disagree,” Murphy declared.
Murphy reaffirmed his order on Wednesday, which prevents the administration from deporting immigrants to so-called third-party nations devoid of due process, following disturbing reports suggesting that the Trump administration was on the brink of flying a new group of deportees to Libya.
Judges across the country wrestling with due process issues continually highlight one central concern: if immigrants can be hastily classified as gang members or terrorists and deported without warning – given little opportunity for hearings or the possibility of losing their ability to enroll in U.S. institutions — then U.S. citizens may also find themselves facing similar fates.
“If the government contends that it has the ability to take someone it thinks is a noncitizen off the street without any process whatsoever — without any guarantee even that the person is who the government claims he is — then what is to stop the government from detaining someone who really is a citizen, even perhaps a sitting judge?” Vilardo wrote in the Ceesay case.
Wilkinson’s colleague on the 4th Circuit, Obama appointee Stephanie Thacker, concurred.
Sanya Singh for TROIB News
This principle of “due process under law,” which has its roots in the Magna Carta and is included in the Bill of Rights, appears to be most shaken for the immigrants that President Donald Trump aims to deport without due process, though U.S. citizens should also be concerned.
Judges across the nation, appointed by presidents from both parties, including Trump, are sounding alarms about what they view as a decline in due process resulting from the administration’s mass deportation policies. Initially targeted were groups Trump identified as “terrorists” and “gang members,” despite their strong denials. Judges warn this could quickly extend to other groups, including U.S. citizens.
“When the courts say due process is important, we're not unhinged, we're not radicals,” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Washington, D.C., appointee of President Joe Biden, remarked at a recent hearing. “We are literally trying to enforce a process embodied in probably the most significant document with respect to peoples' rights against tyrannical government oppression. That's what we're doing here. Okay?”
Judges are framing this issue as existential, grounded in the 5th Amendment’s assurance that “no person shall … be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.” The term “person,” courts have noted, does not differentiate between citizens and noncitizens. The Supreme Court has consistently held that this essential guarantee applies to immigrants in deportation proceedings. In a 1993 judgment, Justice Antonin Scalia described that principle as “well-established.”
The ongoing contention between the White House and the judiciary has obscured a steadily growing, nearly unanimous realization: If the rights of the most vulnerable are not safeguarded by the courts, everyone may face consequences.
“If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?” J. Harvie Wilkinson, a Ronald Reagan appointee to the Richmond-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, pondered. He labeled this an “incipient crisis,” yet also identified it as an opportunity to unite around the rule of law.
In response, Trump and his aides have pushed back against these due process concerns, deeming them exaggerated and impractical. They argue that Trump was elected to remove undocumented immigrants from the country, and that mandate should carry significant weight.
“Over 77 million Americans gave President Trump a resounding Election Day mandate to enforce our immigration laws and mass deport criminal illegal aliens,” stated White House spokesperson Kush Desai. “The Trump administration is using every power endowed to the Executive Branch by the Constitution and Congress, such as Expedited Removal, to deliver on this mandate.”
Stephen Miller, a close adviser to Trump, has vocally criticized what he terms a “judicial coup” that primarily focuses on rulings maintaining due process rights for immigrants. He has dismissed the idea that individuals Trump labels as terrorists – regardless of their denials – should be permitted to challenge their deportations, insisting that they merely have the right to be deported. Last Friday, Miller suggested that the White House was “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus, which allows individuals to contest their government detention.
During a recent Senate hearing, FBI Director Kash Patel expressed uncertainty about whether hundreds of Venezuelans deported to El Salvador in March had received due process.
“What you’re saying is that every single one of the illegals that was sent down to El Salvador is supposed to be given due process,” Patel said in a dialogue with Senator Jeff Merkley.
“That’s what the Constitution says,” replied Merkley.
“It doesn’t say that,” Patel countered.
Last week, Trump shared in an interview that he was uncertain whether the Constitution mandated him to observe due process rights for noncitizens, stating “I don’t know” when asked by NBC’s Kristen Welker. He mourned the significant burden that individual hearings for millions of deportees presented.
Trump reiterated this stance on Wednesday morning, proclaiming, “Our Court System is not letting me do the job I was Elected to do. Activist judges must let the Trump Administration deport murderers, and other criminals who have come into our Country illegally, WITHOUT DELAY!!!”
Despite these frustrations, administration officials assert they are upholding a constitutional level of due process for individuals being deported, even while contesting certain court rulings.
“Neither Congress nor the Founders intended for invading aliens to sit in court for years while their attorneys file frivolous motions,” stated Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security. “This is not what the Constitution requires, and the far left knows it. Given this, any reasonable person might wonder why foreign citizens who have broken our laws are entitled to constitutional protection at all.”
Judges across various levels have rejected that perspective.
The Supreme Court has reiterated the necessity of due process for individuals facing deportation by the Trump administration, countering Trump’s attempts to rapidly remove immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely enacted 1798 law intended to fast-track deportations during wartime. The high court took the unusual step of issuing a ruling at 1 a.m. last month, pausing a new wave of deportations under the Alien Enemies Act until further notice.
Appeals court judges have also expressed dissatisfaction with the administration’s interpretation of due process, specifically in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran who was expelled to his home country last March. The Supreme Court acknowledged that Garcia's deportation was “illegal” as it contravened a 2019 court order that prohibited the government from sending him back due to threats of violent persecution from a local gang. Although the administration recognized the mistake, officials claimed they lacked the authority to reinstate Garcia, while Trump and his aides framed him as a dangerous gang member, indicating that his deportation, although erroneous, was warranted.
“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” Wilkinson stated last month. “This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
Judges appointed by Trump have echoed similar concerns.
In Maryland, a Trump-appointed judge reprimanded the administration for contesting an effort to return another individual who had been sent to El Salvador in violation of a court-mandated settlement. The Justice Department contended that if he were returned to the U.S., he would undoubtedly be re-deported.
“Process is important. We don’t skip to the end and say, ‘We all know how this is going to end up,’” U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher remarked.
U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, also a Trump appointee in Louisiana, expressed a “strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process” regarding a two-year-old sent to Honduras.
While the alarm from the courts is rising, tensions concerning due process are not exclusive to the Trump administration. The executive branch has consistently expressed frustration toward due process rights, which are intended to prevent rapid governmental initiatives that could occur in a system without such safeguards.
“Of course, due process makes it harder for the government to do what it wants,” asserted Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the Berkeley School of Law. “That’s the whole point — to make sure that the government is acting in accord with the law.”
Several cases have been unfolding for months, with some, such as that of Abrego Garcia, gaining national traffic attention, while others have remained lesser-known. However, the tone from the judiciary remains consistent.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo, situated in Buffalo, New York, is overseeing the emergency petition for a Gambian national, Sering Ceesay, 63, who has resided in the Bronx for 30 years and has evaded deportation despite ongoing scrutiny from immigration authorities. Ceesay is under a deportation order that has been authorized by an immigration court for over a decade, but he has also been allowed to remain free while awaiting the conclusion of his case.
On February 19, following a routine check-in, ICE took Ceesay into custody unexpectedly. Vilardo ruled that Ceesay's detention was illegal based on multiple violations of laws and regulations: it was initiated by an unapproved official, he did not receive any notice, and he was deprived of an “informal interview” that ICE regulations demand.
He concluded that these failings required Ceesay’s immediate release from custody, even if re-detained under correct procedures later.
“When someone’s most basic right of freedom is taken away, that person is entitled to at least some minimal process; otherwise, we all are at risk to be detained — and perhaps deported — because someone in the government thinks we are not supposed to be here,” wrote Vilardo.
The Trump administration had argued that the court had no jurisdiction to intervene regarding its alleged procedural breaches because the likely outcome would be Ceesay’s deportation anyway.
“The government’s suggestion … is downright frightening,” Vilardo emphasized. “Procedure is not mere puffery, a gesture that is irrelevant so long as the result is correct.”
In Maryland, Gallagher faced a similar predicament. The Trump administration conceded it had deported a 20-year-old Venezuelan man, identified as Daniel Lozano-Camargo, to El Salvador despite the existence of a 2024 legal settlement prohibiting his deportation while seeking asylum.
However, the Trump administration opposed Gallagher’s order to request Lozano-Camargo’s return from El Salvador to ensure he could receive due process. Instead, Justice Department lawyers produced an unusual “indicative ruling” from immigration officials declaring that Lozano-Camargo would be ineligible for asylum even if he returned to the U.S. They argued that this determination negated the need to navigate the complex process of returning him.
Gallagher, referring to Lozano-Camargo as “Cristian,” a pseudonym utilized in court, rejected this argument outright.
"It may be that the result here for Cristian is no asylum. I think people following the news here for the last four months would not be surprised if that's the end result here,” Gallagher acknowledged during a recent hearing. “We don't just get to skip to the end. He gets to have a particular process and the claim for the process is not futile."
In Massachusetts, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy expressed disbelief at the administration’s assertion that it could deport individuals to any country without prior notice or the explicit approval from an immigration judge, so long as they were given general assurances they would not face torture.
“All nine sitting justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Assistant Solicitor General of the United States, Congress, common sense, basic decency, and this Court all disagree,” Murphy declared.
Murphy reaffirmed his order on Wednesday, which prevents the administration from deporting immigrants to so-called third-party nations devoid of due process, following disturbing reports suggesting that the Trump administration was on the brink of flying a new group of deportees to Libya.
Judges across the country wrestling with due process issues continually highlight one central concern: if immigrants can be hastily classified as gang members or terrorists and deported without warning – given little opportunity for hearings or the possibility of losing their ability to enroll in U.S. institutions — then U.S. citizens may also find themselves facing similar fates.
“If the government contends that it has the ability to take someone it thinks is a noncitizen off the street without any process whatsoever — without any guarantee even that the person is who the government claims he is — then what is to stop the government from detaining someone who really is a citizen, even perhaps a sitting judge?” Vilardo wrote in the Ceesay case.
Wilkinson’s colleague on the 4th Circuit, Obama appointee Stephanie Thacker, concurred.
Sanya Singh for TROIB News
