By Tony Bruce & Don Terry | Sunday, May 18, 2025 | 6 min read
By any honest reading of the law, Donald Trump’s latest legal stunt was never going to fly.
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court extended a temporary ban blocking Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members—without due process. For most Americans, the ruling probably didn’t make headlines. But it should have. Not because it was surprising—it wasn’t—but because of what it revealed: how thin the thread has become between American democracy and raw executive power.
Let’s start with the basics. The Alien Enemies Act is one of those dusty old laws from America’s infancy, passed in 1798, back when the U.S. was still worried about French spies and British saboteurs. The text is as old-fashioned as the parchment it’s written on, but the meaning is crystal clear: The president can only invoke it if the United States is at war with a foreign nation. Not if there’s a crisis. Not if there’s chaos at the border. Not if the president feels like it. Only if there’s a war.
And last we checked, America is not at war with Venezuela.
That should have been the end of it. Case closed.
But in Trump’s America, facts have to fight for their lives.
What the Law Says (and What Trump Pretends It Says)
The opening sentence of the Alien Enemies Act makes the conditions unmistakable:
“Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation…”
That’s not a subtle preamble. That’s a flashing red light. Yet Trump—never one to let constitutional limits get in the way of his plans—tried to use the law anyway, insisting that undocumented Venezuelan immigrants could be treated as wartime enemies and deported without a hearing. No war declaration. No due process. Just presidential fiat.
In a functioning democracy, this would be an easy call.
But we don’t live in ordinary times.
Trump’s legal theory is that a border crisis, or even a spike in gang activity, can be spun into a “predatory incursion” by a foreign power. And with that one rhetorical sleight of hand, he claims the right to activate wartime powers reserved for scenarios like Pearl Harbor.
He’s not alone in this fantasy. Two Supreme Court justices—Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas—went along for the ride.
The Dissent That Speaks Volumes
The court’s unsigned majority opinion on Friday wasn’t long—it didn’t need to be. The decision to extend the temporary ban didn’t dive into the legal weeds or issue a final judgment. It simply said: This goes too far. Slow down.
But Justice Alito’s dissent—joined, of course, by Thomas—was something else entirely. It read like a legal manifesto in defense of authoritarianism. Paragraph after paragraph, Alito strained to justify why Trump should be allowed to sidestep the courts and treat alleged gang members as enemies of the state, based solely on their country of origin.
It wasn’t legal reasoning. It was political cover.
Coming from Alito and Thomas, this wasn’t surprising. It was expected.
These are the same two justices who’ve made headlines for their ethics scandals, their partisan entanglements, and their increasingly public alignment with the MAGA movement. Thomas, whose wife helped fuel January 6th conspiracies. Alito, whose household flew flags associated with Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
If these two had their way, the Constitution would serve more as a permission slip for Trump’s ambitions than a check against them.
And that’s what makes this ruling so important.
A Court Under Siege
Let’s be clear: this ruling didn’t overturn Trump’s policy. It just kept it from being enforced—for now. But in today’s legal environment, even a procedural win for the rule of law feels like a lifeline.
Trump has spent years testing the boundaries of presidential power, and he’s learned something dangerous: When the courts are willing to let you slide, there are no boundaries.
In this case, the majority—likely including Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett—chose not to play along. That’s good news. But it’s also a warning. Because what happens next time, when the legal argument isn’t quite as flimsy? When the law is more ambiguous?
What happens when Trump returns to office, with a Supreme Court that looks at the Constitution and sees a menu of options rather than a framework of limits?
Friday’s decision may have gone the right way, but it also revealed how thin the line is—how dependent our democracy has become on the personal judgment of a few black-robed individuals.
And two of them—Alito and Thomas—have made it clear: Their loyalty lies not with the law, but with the man.
Trump’s Playbook: Invent a Crisis, Demand Power
The truth is, this isn’t about Venezuela. Trump couldn’t care less about the country, its people, or its politics. What he cares about is control. And the Alien Enemies Act gives him a pathway—however absurd—to seize it.
It’s the same pattern we’ve seen before.
- Invent a crisis (Mexican rapists, migrant caravans, Venezuelan gangsters).
- Declare it an emergency.
- Demand extraordinary powers.
- Attack anyone who disagrees as a traitor, a globalist, or a deep state pawn.
It’s cynical. It’s dangerous. And worst of all—it works.
After Friday’s ruling, Trump took to Truth Social and raged:
“THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!”
There it is. The lie. The rallying cry.
The court didn’t block Trump from deporting criminals. It blocked him from doing it without due process, without evidence, without law.
But for Trump and his allies, due process is just another obstacle.
And with justices like Alito and Thomas on his side, those obstacles are getting easier to knock down.
A Court Divided, a Nation at Risk
At this point, we shouldn’t have to hope that Roberts or Barrett or Kavanaugh will “do the right thing.” The Constitution should not rely on five people deciding whether democracy is worth defending.
But here we are.
And while this ruling was a win for the rule of law, it came with a chilling caveat: Only five justices were willing to pump the brakes.
Two were fully prepared to give Trump the keys to wartime powers—no war required. That’s not jurisprudence. That’s complicity.
The more Trump pushes, the more this court will be tested. And the more justices like Alito and Thomas reveal just how far they’re willing to go to protect him.
We should celebrate Friday’s decision. But we should also recognize how fragile that victory is.
Because if America is going to survive this authoritarian stress test, we’ll need more than lucky breaks and procedural delays.
We’ll need a judiciary that understands the stakes.
We’ll need voters who understand the danger.
And we’ll need leaders who don’t confuse loyalty to power with loyalty to country.
Until then, the Constitution is only as strong as the people entrusted to interpret it.
And two of them have already made their choice.
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