The Justice Department has dusted off the cobwebs of an inactive deportation court, and the development has some immigration rights activists concerned about the future. The Alien Terrorist Removal Court was established in 1996 but has never heard a case until now, and its usage could eventually become an issue for the Supreme Court.
‘Challenging the constitutionality’
The Trump DOJ is attempting to use the Alien Terrorist Removal Court to deport Nazira Haji Zada, a “legal permanent resident from Afghanistan who is accused of having ISIS sympathies and of assisting her son in a thwarted terror plot that targeted the 2024 election,” said CNN. Zada’s lawyers are “challenging the constitutionality of the deportation tribunal,” saying the court does not follow due process.
The specialized court was created during the Clinton administration to “conduct deportation proceedings for individuals whom the Justice Department classifies as ‘alien terrorists,’” said The Associated Press, and is “comprised of five federal judges from different districts across the country who are appointed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court.” But Zada’s case marks the first time the government has ever brought charges via the Alien Terrorist Removal Court.
Zada has not been formally charged with a crime, and the court allows the U.S. to “attempt to remove noncitizens from the country upon representing them as an alien terrorist under a lower standard than would be required to convict them of a criminal charge,” said NBC News. As far as bringing other cases, the DOJ “will use every tool available to bring alien terrorists to justice and remove them from the United States, including this court,” a Justice Department spokesperson told NBC.
‘Avoided using the court’
While Zada pleads her innocence, the case could “set up months, if not years, of litigation over the court’s constitutionality, a question that could ultimately travel to the Supreme Court,” said CNN. Before Trump, prior presidential administrations “avoided using the court, relying instead on the procedures in normal deportation proceedings for handling classified information.” The law allows Zada to have a “special attorney who can view classified evidence and interrogate it on her behalf.”
Many have scoffed at the facts of Zada’s case, as documents provide a “very limited view of why the government thinks she is a terrorist and why it believes disclosing that evidence would imperil national security,” said CNN. The court’s procedures also let the DOJ withhold this evidence “not just from the public, but from the accused alien terrorist herself.” The DOJ also acknowledged it is required to obtain a “statement of the facts and circumstances” to “establish probable cause that the alien is an alien terrorist,” the department said in a court filing.
For now, it does not seem that the DOJ has any intention of stopping the court’s usage, despite constitutional questions. Officials have already “built a website for the institution” and are currently “working on an electronic filing system where people can find relevant court papers,” said NPR. “Congress created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court three decades ago to remove from the United States alien terrorists who never should have been here in the first place,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. The case “makes clear that terrorists have no place in the United States of America.”