Justice Department activates secret deportation path for alleged terrorists

The Justice Department filed a first-ever petition to activate the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, a secretive tribunal created in 1996 to weigh government requests to deport so-called alien terrorists from the United States. The court had never received a petition before, leaving the government with no tested playbook for how the process works or how much evidence and courtroom access it requires. The move lands as the Trump administration presses to speed deportations and push around ordinary immigration court channels.

That dormant court matters because it was built for a narrow, security-driven purpose. When the government invokes terrorism, it can seek faster removals, tighter secrecy and more limited access to counsel or evidence than in a standard immigration case. Because the mechanism has no operating history, the next legal fight will likely center on basic questions: who sees the record, what burden of proof applies and how a respondent can challenge material the government wants to keep hidden.

Under ordinary immigration law, most people facing deportation are entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge, even though those rights are not the same as the protections available in criminal court. The Brennan Center for Justice has noted that distinction, and it sits at the center of this case. If the new petition succeeds, the process could reduce or bypass those protections in a proceeding designed around national security rather than routine immigration enforcement.

The filing also fits a wider strategy by the Trump administration to accelerate removals. The administration has pursued other ways to speed deportations, including a Supreme Court-related dispute over removals under an 18th-century wartime law. Together, those efforts show how often immigration, counterterrorism and executive power now overlap in Washington.

If courts allow the Alien Terrorist Removal Court to function as intended, the procedure could become a template for future cases involving noncitizens the government labels as security threats. If judges reject it or narrow it sharply, the Justice Department will have to defend a 1996 mechanism that sat dormant for three decades before the first petition ever arrived.