"That is the president's call alone; the federal courts have no role to play." So argued the Trump administration in a recent legal filing.* To call the administration's position a naked assertion of unchecked executive power would be a severe understatement.
To understand why, let's review how we got here. On April 7, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that if President Donald Trump wants to deport an alleged "alien enemy" under the terms of the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), then the deportee is first "entitled to 'judicial review' as to 'questions of interpretation and constitutionality of the Act.'"
It is that same judicial review that is now at issue in the administration's recent legal filing.
