The U.S. Supreme Court gave the Trump administration a win on Monday, allowing deportations of illegal immigrants to third countries (read: countries other than the ones that they are from) in a 6-3 ruling along ideological lines.
As reported on Wednesday’s AM Update, the decision came in response to a preliminary injunction against the White House issued on April 18 by Massachusetts-based U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy – who was confirmed in the waning days of the Biden administration – that barred the administration from deporting immigrants to third countries without affording them the opportunity to object.
In May, the judge then found the Trump team had violated his April order by attempting to deport eight illegals – all of whom had been convicted of other crimes, including murder – to South Sudan. In response to Murphy’s ruling, those men have instead been being held at a U.S. military base in Djibouti because they were already en route to South Sudan.
All the while, the Trump administration appealed the ruling to the high court after the First Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Judge Murphy.
Going Rogue
The Supreme Court’s decision on Monday lifted the April injunction, thus clearing the way for third country deportations to resume. Hours after the ruling, however, the detainees filed an emergency motion with Judge Murphy asking for a continued block on their deportations.
Murphy said the motion was unnecessary because, in his view, the order the Supreme Court stayed – the April 18 prohibiting these deportations – was different from the one that found the Trump administration had violated that earlier order when it attempted to actually deport these eight men without the court-mandated due process.
“In other words, he said, ‘Even though my order saying you cannot deport them without a hearing has been vacated, you still violated it before we knew it was invalid and, therefore, these men cannot be deported,'” Megyn explained. “As if not deporting these guys is now the punishment for the administration disobeying what we now know was an invalid order.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told Fox News that Murphy’s order amounts to a “lawless act” and a “judicial coup.” And on Tuesday, the Trump administration filed a motion requesting the Supreme Court clarify that its order allows these deportations to continue and asking it to stop Judge Murphy from interfering.
The Department of Justice’s filing also asks the justices to consider requiring Judge Murphy to obtain pre-clearance from the Supreme Court before he issues any future injunctions in this case or to reassign the case to a different judge altogether.
The Rise of Activist Judges
On Wednesday’s edition of The Megyn Kelly Show, Megyn called Murphy’s behavior “dangerously unconstitutional” and asked Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who is also a constitutional lawyer, how he views the situation.
“This is exactly what the framers of the Constitution wanted to prevent… This is a violation of separation of powers. They are sort of trying to override the duly elected president,” he explained. “As a conservative majority, [SCOTUS] has done the right thing here, but still – in defiance, effectively, of the Supreme Court – you have these federal district court judges acting like they are little kings. It’s crazy.”
In his view, “activist judges” have created a “serious crisis” that Congress has taken steps to address. “We have passed legislation in the House called the No Rogue Rulings Act, which will rein in the ability of single individual activist judges from stopping an administration’s policies,” Speaker Johnson said. “I also call upon, of course, Chief Justice [John] Roberts because he does have some authority within the court system under Article III to rein in some of this nonsense. And if they don’t, then Congress will take action.”
Speaker Johnson said Congress has the constitutional authority “to limit jurisdiction of courts” and “even eliminate the existence of whole courts.” That would represent the extreme, which he suggested “principled constitutional conservatives” who “believe in the system” would try to avoid.
Instead, the speaker said “we want to work within the system to do it the right way” as the executive branch does the same. “I applaud the president… He is going through the system… using an aggressive, effective Department of Justice that believes in the rule of law to try to get it corrected appropriately,” he noted. “I mean, Congress does have a role to play, and we will have to look at that very carefully.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Speaker Johnson by tuning in to episode 1,095 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.