Stephen Miller said courts can’t rule on Trump’s immigration actions. Legal experts say he’s wrong.

With President Donald Trump frustrated over federal courts slowing his pursuit of mass deportations, one key adviser said these courts violated the law by weighing in at all.

White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller addressed a federal court’s March decision to temporarily block Homeland Security Secretary Kirsti Noem’s termination of Temporary Protected Status for certain Venezuelans, approved under former President Joe Biden.

"Congress passed a body of law known as the Immigration and Nationality Act, which stripped Article III courts, that's the judicial branch, of jurisdiction over immigration cases," White House adviser Stephen Miller told reporters May 9. "So, when Secretary Noem terminated TPS for the illegals that Biden flew into the country, when courts stepped in, they were violating explicit language that Congress enacted."

Miller’s statement is wrong in a couple of ways. 

Biden did not fly immigrants into the U.S. People had to pay for their travel to the U.S. under a program that let certain people temporarily and legally live and work in the U.S. Temporary Protected Status is a separate program that prevents the deportation of certain people already in the U.S.

Although the Immigration and Nationality Act limits federal courts’ authority to hear appeals on certain immigration cases, it does not say courts can’t rule on the constitutionality of a president’s immigration actions.

The Homeland Security secretary can grant Temporary Protected Status to people from certain countries undergoing war, environmental disasters and epidemics. The program allows eligible immigrants to legally live and work in the U.S. for six- to 18-month periods.

Legal experts said the court was within bounds to rule on the matter.

"There is absolutely nothing about an immigration policy that, by virtue of the fact that it is an immigration policy, that insulates it from judicial review," Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina professor of jurisprudence, previously told PolitiFact.

The Immigration and Nationality Act lays out federal courts’ role in immigration cases

More than 70 U.S. immigration courts hear immigration cases, such as a person’s asylum application and deportation proceedings. Immigration courts fall under the executive branch in the Justice Department, not the judiciary branch as federal courts do.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 lays out the process by which immigrants can appeal decisions in their immigration cases and when federal courts can get involved. 

"Congress did pare back review by federal courts of immigration cases," Hiroshi Motomura, University of California, Los Angeles immigration law professor, said. "Congress also put some constraints on when courts could hear claims arising out of immigration cases."

For example, people can only seek a federal court’s review on a deportation order within 30 days of getting the order. And immigrants generally can’t seek a federal court’s review if they’re ordered deported through expedited removal — a fast track deportation process.

But the Immigration and Nationality Act didn’t strip federal courts from jurisdiction over all immigration cases.

"Congress did not — and could not, due to provisions of the US Constitution — end all court jurisdiction to hear immigration cases" Motomura said. "In this key sense, Miller is very wrong."

Rick Su, University of North Carolina immigration law professor, previously told PolitiFact that  federal courts "reverse specific immigration decisions all the time."

"This is especially true when it comes to asylum or removal proceedings with defective processes," Su said. "Courts often do strike down executive branch actions with respect to specific immigrants."

Federal courts can rule on the legality of the president’s immigration actions

The role of federal courts in immigration has grown over the past several presidential administrations, mainly because Congress hasn’t updated immigration law in decades. 

As legislative policy stagnates, presidents have increasingly used their executive power to enforce immigration law to increase legal pathways, limit asylum or quickly deport people. In return, states, immigrants and advocacy organizations have sued the federal government. 

The federal government has broad power over immigration enforcement. But its actions can still be reviewed by federal courts.

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"They do that to ensure that the government acts in a way that's consistent with law, both with the Immigration and Nationality Act and with the federal Constitution," Matthew Lindsay, a University of Baltimore law professor, previously told PolitiFact.

During former President Barack Obama’s administration, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a split 4-4 ruling, leaving in place a lower court’s decision that blocked Obama’s planned expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that prevents the deportation of immigrants who entered the United States illegally as children.

Under Biden, a federal judge blocked the administration from creating a program that would have helped people who are in the U.S. illegally get citizenship if they were married to, or the children of, U.S. citizens.

As for Temporary Protected Status, the Immigration and Nationality Act gives the Homeland Security secretary the authority to designate which countries’ immigrants are eligible. "The general rule is that the courts cannot review the President's TPS designations," Kevin Johnson, University of California Davis immigration law professor, said. 

The Temporary Protected Status statute says "there is no judicial review" for the "designation, or termination or extension" of a country under this program. 

However, Johnson said, the courts can step in to determine whether the administration has violated the Constitution or the Administrative Procedure Act — a law describing how federal agencies can make and enforce regulations. 

In the case against Noem’s termination of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans, the plaintiffs argue that Noem violated the Administrative Procedure Act and that the decision was racially motivated.

In his ruling, Obama-appointed District Judge Edward Chen, who temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s Temporary Protected Status termination for certain Venezuelans, cited the Administrative Procedure Act. He said the plaintiffs would "likely succeed in demonstrating that the actions taken by the Secretary are unauthorized by law, arbitrary and capricious, and motivated by unconstitutional animus."

Our ruling

Miller said the Immigration and Nationality Act "stripped Article III courts, that's the judicial branch, of jurisdiction over immigration cases."

The Immigration and Nationality Act limited federal court’s jurisdiction over immigration cases, such as appeals for certain immigration decisions. But it did not strip the courts of their function to rule on the constitutionality of a president’s immigration actions.

Federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have and continue to rule on presidential actions on immigration, legal experts say. The courts weigh in on whether an administration’s action is constitutional, in line with the Immigration and Nationality Act or in compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act. 

We rate the statement False.