There is a judicial coup underway in the U.S., and the Supreme Court is refusing to stop it. Yet another unpunished hit to the Constitution happened this week when a federal judge in Texas ordered President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security to hand over sensitive communications with the El Salvadoran government about one of its Alien Enemies Act deportees.
In his initial order, Judge Keith P. Ellison of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas ordered the Trump administration to confirm the “current location and health status” of Venezuelan Widmer Josneyder Agelviz-Sanguino, who was allegedly one of the 238 deportees flown to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, within 24 hours.
The Clinton appointee also demanded that the Trump administration disclose “the legal basis for his continued detention,” ensure Agelviz-Sanguino can establish contact with his lawyers, and detail “any logistical arrangements made with El Salvadoran authorities.”
After multiple extensions, the Trump administration handed over information to the judge under seal, according to legal news outlet Law & Crime. Ellison, however, deemed the documents insufficient and issued a subsequent order demanding that the U.S. government file a “declaration describing all actions taken by Defendants and the U.S. Embassy since May 19, 2025.”
The order claims to require details like “Names/titles of El Salvadoran officials contacted, methods of contact, and copies of all written communications” and “Timeline of follow-up attempts and plans to escalate such attempts if no response is received.” Ellison even mandated a description of the “specific El Salvadoran law cited as justification for Agelviz-Sanguino’s detention” down to the “Statute name, article number, English translation, and verification of its applicability to Venezuelan nationals.”
The Department of Justice appealed the order to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which issued an administrative stay on Ellison’s demands Friday morning.
As Will Chamberlain, senior counsel at The Article III Project noted, Ellison’s order is “completely insane.”
“Article III does not get to tell Article II how to conduct foreign affairs – nor does it get to surveil sensitive diplomatic discussions,” he wrote.
Yet, until the Supreme Court ends the unbridled injunction and order madness, the Trump administration is at the mercy of an unconstitutional supremacy that has infected even the furthest limbs of the judicial branch.
There is no shortage of ripe material from federal judges openly hoping to hamstring the Trump administration’s attempt to deport foreign criminals, manage the executive branch, and more for SCOTUS to scold. Yet, most of the justices seem to have turned a blind eye — even after Justice Samuel Alito warned against the high bench’s tendency to make “a most unfortunate misstep that rewards an act of judicial hubris.”
In fact, Chief Justice John Roberts has gone so far as to tacitly endorse and defend the judicial supremacy that is wreaking havoc on the nation.
The Supreme Court appears to have no problem with lower courts, including Ellison’s, interfering with Trump’s Article II immigration enforcement power. With the exception of its recent ruling affirming Trump has the constitutional authority to remove the Biden-era temporary protections afforded certain illegal border crossers, it has done the exact same thing that lower courts have without hesitation.
“If the average American were asked to point to the section of the U.S. Constitution granting the Supreme Court authority to execute immigration laws, chances are he would have a tough time finding it. Why? Because such a power doesn’t exist,” my colleague Shawn Fleetwood succinctly noted in April.
One month after the Supreme Court’s usurpation, the will of the Americans who elected the Trump administration on promises to clean up the Biden administration’s border crisis is still obstructed thanks to lower courts’ activism and the high bench’s complicity in that activism.
Unless the Supreme Court gets its act together or lower judges begin to face impeachments and removals, the nation will once again endure years of yet another constitutional crisis that is on track to get worse before it ever has a chance of getting better.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
