A rarely glimpsed corner of the federal judiciary has been activated for the first time in its nearly three-decade existence. The JustICE Department submitted an application on July 15 to the Alien Terrorist Removal Court — a classified immigration tribunal that Congress created in 1996 but that no administration had ever previously invoked — seeking to deport a noncitizen it contends legally qualifies as an "alien terrorist." Court Watch, an independent news organization, was first to report on the filing, which is almost entirely under seal and was submitted before the court had even launched a public website.
Established during the Clinton era, the tribunal was designed for situations in which the government holds sensitive national security evidence against a noncitizen that cannot safely be aired in conventional immigration proceedings. The law requires the attorney general personally to authorize any application, after which one of five federal judges — each appointed to the court by the Supreme Court's chief justice — rules on whether to proceed. A denial can be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The evidentiary rules are strikingly one-sided. Respondents, even those holding lawful permanent resident status, have no right to examine the classified material used against them and, unlike criminal defendants, cannot contest how that material was gathered. They may retain private counsel; green card holders may also have a security-cleared attorney appointed on their behalf.
To move forward, prosecutors must establish probable cause that the respondent is both a noncitizen and fits the statutory definition of an "alien terrorist" who endangers national security. The record is reviewed almost exclusively by the presiding judge and government lawyers, with the public shut out.
Timing added a layer of political sensitivity to the filing. July 15 was the same day Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing, meaning the application had already been submitted when senators questioned him — yet the court's website did not go live until days afterward, leaving lawmakers without any public record to raise during the session.
Chief Judge Joan Ericksen of the U.S. District Court for Minnesota, assigned to the matter, has since pressed the Justice Department for additional support for its removal request. Following a sealed hearing on July 16, she wrote that the court "had 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." Should the application ultimately be approved, a public removal hearing would be required.
Immigration attorney Eric Lee of Lee & Godshall-Bennett described the move as historically significant. "It's a precedent that no president has wanted to set," he said. In his view, allowing the executive branch to detain someone possessing full constitutional rights on the basis of secret evidence and arguments the person cannot hear — evidence that may have been gathered through unlawful means — means "those are Rubicons that have not been crossed in this country's history."
The Justice Department offered no case-specific details, citing the sealed record. A department spokesperson stated that the department "will use every tool available to bring alien terrorists to justice and remove them from the United States, including this court established by Congress in 1996."
The move fits within a broader pattern of administration efforts to accelerate the removal of individuals suspected of terrorism ties. Certain criminal organizations have been formally designated as foreign terrorist organizations, a classification that can speed up removal. The administration previously attempted to deport suspected members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua under a separate statute, but a federal judge in Washington concluded that the Alien Terrorist Removal Court was the more fitting venue for such proceedings.
Structurally, the tribunal mirrors the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which handles warrant applications for intelligence gathering. Notably, all five judges serving on the Alien Terrorist Removal Court hold concurrent appointments to that surveillance court as well.
Aram Gavoor, who worked as a national security attorney in the Justice Department's Civil Division and has studied the court's history, acknowledged the lower evidentiary bar compared with criminal proceedings but argued that rigorous judicial oversight provides a meaningful check. "This is an Article III court created by statute for a special purpose. It is the highest standard of due process balancing," he said. The absence of publicly available evidence, he added, "is counterbalanced by a cohort of the most serious judges we have on the bench," who "are not going to cut corners at all."
This article has been rewritten for originality from previously published reporting. All facts, names, dates, and direct quotations are preserved from the source material.