{"id":1151,"date":"2026-07-21T19:08:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T19:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=1151"},"modified":"2026-07-21T19:08:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T19:08:23","slug":"the-trump-administration-is-trying-to-revive-a-zombie-deportation-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=1151","title":{"rendered":"The Trump Administration Is Trying to Revive a \u201cZombie\u201d Deportation Court"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Last week, <\/span>the Trump administration filed the first-of-its-kind application with a 30-year-old removal court seeking to deport an immigrant as a suspected \u201calien terrorist.\u201d The twist is that the court has been dormant for that entire time.<\/p>

Read more How the Threat of an ICE Detention Center Galvanized a Trump-Country Coal Town<\/a><\/p>\n

Congress created the special Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC) in 1996 as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. \u201cFrom now on we can quickly expel foreigners who dare to come to America and support terrorist activities,\u201d President Bill Clinton when signing the bill into law.<\/p>\n

The statute authorized the Chief Justice of the United States to assign five district court judges to review removal applications brought by the attorney general against alleged non-citizen \u201cterrorists\u201d in complex cases involving sensitive national security information.<\/p>\n

In its 30 years of existence, that removal court has never received a removal application or conducted any proceedings, even if its five-member body has been fully staffed. Currently, all five judges are also part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, another special court that reviews government applications for foreign intelligence surveillance warrants.<\/p>\n

On July 15, the Justice Department filed a single-page with the special court. Details about the case are sealed. But a judge\u2019s order on the matter states that, following a hearing, the court \u201chad questions about the nexus that the government alleges between the actions of the respondent and the specific sections and subsections it invokes with respect to those actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The order, signed by the court\u2019s presiding judge Joan N. Ericksen, says that the \u201cGovernment could benefit from the opportunity for more thoughtful consideration.\u201d The judge asked the administration to \u201cprovide any further factual or legal analysis to satisfy its statutory obligations\u201d by Wednesday, July 22.<\/p>\n

A judge may grant the attorney general\u2019s application if they find probable cause that the government correctly identified the alleged \u201calien terrorist\u201d and if their removal under regular proceedings would pose a risk to the national security of the United States. The person accused has the right to a public removal hearing, and the government has to provide an unclassified summary of the evidence. The judge\u2019s decision can be appealed to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.<\/p>

Read more Tribes and Environmental Groups Sue to Block Trump\u2019s Gutting of the Endangered Species Act<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that the Justice Department has initiated an ATRC proceeding is quite serious,\u201d said Aram Gavoor, the associate dean for academic affairs at George Washington University\u2019s law school who wrote a 2019 paper about the removal court\u2019s inactivity. \u201cIt is 20 to 30 times harder to succeed in a court like this, especially the first time, than to bring perhaps the exact same case in administrative removal proceedings before an immigration judge.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that article, Gavoor and his co-author explained that the ATRC isn\u2019t supposed to be a \u201chigh-volume court used for run-of-the-mill removal cases. Instead, it should be used only when the attorney general \u201cdetermines that resorting to conventional removal proceedings would jeopardize national security.\u201d With the passage of subsequent legislation that further limited the scope of potential cases to reach the ATRC,it has been relegated to a \u201cveritable zombie court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve Vladeck, a constitutional law expert at Georgetown University, described the ATRC as \u201can academic curiosity\u201d on his Substack. \u201cI have at least some <\/em>concerns about why the Trump administration is dusting it off now,\u201d Vladeck wrote. He noted that the ATRC has guardrails that make it different from the regular removal process\u2014including that it\u2019s administered not by the Justice Department\u2019s immigration judges butby Article III judges from different judicial courts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Its mandate also presents some due process concerns because it allows the government to rely on classified evidence that might not be made available to the person it\u2019s trying to deport. During legislative debates leading up to the Act\u2019s passage, then-Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) pointed out the risks of deporting people based on secret evidence, calling it \u201cabout as un-American as it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vladeck appeared skeptical that the Trump administration could use this forgotten court to fully pursue its mass deportation goals. \u201cIf there\u2019s something nefarious afoot,\u201d he wrote, \u201cit\u2019s meaningfully smaller than that in scale.\u201d Vladeck described it as \u201cscalpel, not a bazooka.\u201d Nonetheless, he argued, \u201cthe fact that the government had never previously\u00a0used\u00a0this process in the 30 years it\u2019s been on the books speaks to the discomfort that just about everyone who\u2019s ever looked carefully at the statute has come away with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gavoor explained that the government has to eventually lay out what the case is about, even if most of the relevant information is kept classified. \u201cWe\u2019ll find out maybe in the next couple weeks what comes to bear,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s a first-time use of a court. It\u2019s like getting into a car that came out of the factory 30 years ago but has never been started. There are all kinds of questions about how it\u2019s going to work.\u201d<\/p>

Read more Oceans Are Absorbing Huge Amounts of Heat\u2014and Sending Some of It Ashore<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s like getting into a car that came out of the factory 30 years ago but has never been started.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Trump Administration Is Trying to Revive a \u201cZombie\u201d Deportation Court - Moving and Mortgage Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=1151\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Trump Administration Is Trying to Revive a \u201cZombie\u201d Deportation Court - 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