Justice Jackson, who grew up in Miami, opposed allowing Trump to deport Venezuelans with TPS
Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was known as a formidable debater at Miami Palmetto Senior High School in the 1980s, joined the U.S. Supreme Court as its first Black female justice three ago ago.
On Monday, Jackson was the only justice whose name appeared on the Supreme Court’s momentous decision that allows the Trump administration to revoke deportation and work protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants.
Jackson opposed the court’s unsigned order in favor of the administration. Its ruling reversed a federal judge’s decision blocking the Trump administration from revoking the Temporary Protected Status for about 350,000 Venezuelans living and working in Florida and other states.
Although the court’s order offered no explanation, Jackson was opposed to allowing the Department of Homeland Security to deport the Venezuelan immigrants while they are suing the government over its revocation policy in federal court. The court’s order simply said that Jackson “would deny” the administration’s request.
Jackson, 54, who grew up in Miami, is among the three liberals on the conservative-dominated nine-member court. She may be its newest justice, but she “really hit the ground running,” said Pamela S. Karlan, a law professor at Stanford, in a New York Times assessment of her first year on the Supreme Court in 2023.
“And the lines are pretty sharply drawn between her and the majority on criminal justice issues as well as racial justice issues,” Karlan said.
As President Donald Trump has launched a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration in his second term, Jackson has voted with her liberal colleagues in a dissent on an Alien Enemies Act petition and with the majority in another appeal on the wartime powers law dating back to 1798.
In April, the Supreme Court vacated temporary restraining orders issued by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that had halted deportations of Venezuelan gang suspects under the Alien Enemies Act to a mega prison in El Salvador. The court split 5-4, with Republican appointees in the majority and Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett dissenting alongside the court’s three Democratic appointees, including Jackson.
In an unsigned “per curiam” ruling for the court, the majority said detainees must bring their challenges in habeas corpus proceedings where they are being held by immigration authorities. “The detainees are confined in Texas, so venue is improper in the District of Columbia,” the majority found.
The dissenting justices, noting the brutal conditions of the El Salvador prison, focused on the potential “life or death consequences.”
But last week, Jackson sided with six other justices in their majority ruling that extended a block on the Trump administration from deporting suspected Venezuelan gang members who are being detained in parts of Texas to the El Salvador prison under the wartime powers law.
The justices also reprimanded federal authorities for failing to provide the detainees with more due process under the Alien Enemies Act.
In the 7-2 vote, the court’s emergency decision prevents immigration agents from removing alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang under the 18th century law as two detainees pursue their challenge in the federal Northern District of Texas.
This story was originally published May 19, 2025 at 6:16 PM.
