SCOTUS Endorses Disappearing People
The Highest American Court Just Gave the Government a Green Light to Abduct, Expel, and Destroy. And It Will Not Stop at the Border
“If you accept that non‑citizens have no right to due process, you are accepting that citizens have no right to due process. All the government has to do is claim that you are not a citizen; without due process you have no chance to prove the contrary.”
— Timothy Snyder
“In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.”
— Eugene V. Debs
“In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution,” Justice Sotomayor warned in dissent. The Court refused.
On June 23, 2025, the United States Supreme Court crossed a line. In Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D., the Court granted the government a stay that allows it to remove people from this country. Not just to their countries of citizenship, but to any “third country” it chooses, with no notice, no hearing, and no meaningful chance to claim protection from death or torture.
This ruling doesn’t just affect those branded as “deportable.” It reshapes the very architecture of accountability and due process in America. What SCOTUS has sanctioned here is an experiment in disappearing people, and every American, regardless of status, has a stake in stopping it.
The Government as Kidnapper
The facts, as laid out by Justice Sotomayor in a blistering dissent, sound like a dispatch from a failed state:
A man identified in the record as O.C.G. came before an immigration judge seeking protection from being returned to Guatemala, where he had been tortured because of his identity as a gay man. The judge granted withholding of removal. Yet two days later, DHS put him on a bus to Mexico. They gave him only a verbal notice and refused to give his lawyer any warning. Mexico promptly returned him to Guatemala, where he went into hiding.
In another instance, DHS attempted to send thirteen class members to Libya, a country where rival armed factions openly refused to accept their arrival and where the threat of death was imminent. Only an eleventh-hour order from a District Court stopped the deportation.
Meanwhile, DHS put eight more people on a flight to South Sudan, despite the State Department advising all Americans to leave that country due to “armed conflict” and ethnic violence. According to the record, those six had no meaningful notice and no chance to claim protection.
Each case exposes a brutal truth: the United States Government is already acting as an extralegal abductor. What SCOTUS has now done is make it the official policy of the United States.
SCOTUS as the New Midwife of Authoritarianism
It is tempting to describe this as a mere technical error or a misinterpretation of obscure sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act. It is not. This ruling is the logical outcome of an ongoing campaign by this Court to enable the Executive Branch’s march toward authoritarianism.
In prior Firewall articles we warned that the Court was aligning itself with the forces of tyranny. The decision in D.H.S. v. D.V.D. is the culmination of that trend.
The Court has refused to enforce basic due process, refused to respect its own lower courts’ findings, refused to acknowledge the profound human cost, and refused to recognize the systemic threat posed by granting the Executive carte blanche to remove any person from the United States to any location it chooses.
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, put it plainly in dissent:
“Rather than allowing our lower court colleagues to manage this high-stakes litigation with the care and attention it plainly requires, this Court now intervenes to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied. I cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion.”
The dissent goes further, making the warning explicit:
“Even if the orders in question had been mistaken, the Government had a duty to obey them until they were ‘reversed by orderly and proper proceedings.’ That principle is a bedrock of the rule of law. The Government’s misconduct threatens it to its core. So too does this Court’s decision to grant the Government equitable relief.”
This is SCOTUS telling future administrations: Do what you want. Break the rules. Break the people. We will have your back.
What This Means for All of Us
This decision is about more than immigration. It is about a shift in the nature of state power within the United States. It allows the Government to:
Disappear people with as little as 15 minutes’ notice.
Operate beyond the boundaries of judicial review.
Punish lower courts for doing their jobs.
Export its cruelty to any nation that will accept a person.
Today it’s the immigrant. Tomorrow it’s the citizen dissident, the journalist, the lawyer, the doctor, the teacher; any person the regime deems undesirable. The mechanism is the same: claim that the person has no right to review, no right to notice, no right to a hearing, and no right to remain.
As prior Firewall articles have argued, and as the evidence confirms, the path from “othering” to “disappearing” is short. The line between those we can banish and those we can eradicate grows faint as soon as courts authorize its erasure.
The Cost of Silence
The United States is no longer merely flirting with authoritarianism. In D.H.S. v D.V.D., it embraced it. What SCOTUS has announced is that in this era of decay, the rules don’t matter, the Constitution doesn’t matter, and neither does the life or dignity of the person in the Government’s hands.
Justice Sotomayor put it plainly:
“Each time this Court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law.”
This is how nations collapse: not with a bang, but with a shrug. Not with a new tyrant, but with a ruling. Not with a coup, but with a decision buried in a docket.
If silence and complicity have brought nations to ruin before, what are we doing now? What will we tell ourselves when the knock comes, when the person disappears, when the state operates beyond the reach of any judge, any jury, any review at all?
This decision is a test. Not just of the Constitution. Not just of the Court. Not just of Congress.
It is a test of us.
If we fail, the legacy will be measured in the terror of those disappeared and the silence of those who refused to speak.
If we rise, it will be measured in the victories we claim — in courtrooms, in legislatures, and in neighborhoods — as we drag the machinery of this burgeoning tyranny into the harsh light of accountability.
We must rise. We must act. We must make this decision the spark for a new era of resistance.
For ourselves. For O.C.G., N.M. and the countless others.
For the nation that can still be saved.
This is the line. Will you cross it, or will you defend it?
The choice is ours. The time is now.
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As a lawyer, I agree and support this post. I find Snyder’s warning chillingly accurate: once the government can unilaterally deny due process by claiming someone isn’t a citizen, every American’s rights hang on nothing more than the government’s word — and that is the essence of tyranny. Now following. Thanks Jonathan.
With today's news that the Democrats voted against impeachment because of the unapproved bombings, it seems that now we have the Republican and Democratic parties, Supreme Court, Corporations, and Billionaires aligned against the American people. It seems that an International Court is our only hope. The Big Bill will pass with Democratic approval, which the Republicans do not need, and we will lose everything. Someone must act. We have enough attorneys in Substack to contact the International Court for guidance. That, or pack up and leave to where?