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. ____

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                   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.