Legal analysts continue to express concerns over President Donald Trump's defiance of the Supreme Court regarding the deportations carried out by the administration, which have been criticized for lacking due process. In an article for The Atlantic published Friday, journalist Adam Serwer wrote that the Trump administration thinks it possesses a dictator’s prerogative to disappear people off the street and spirit them to CECOT, and that the Supreme Court has not done enough to stop him. "The Roberts Court has sought to avoid direct confrontation with the Trump administration, but the administration’s insistence that it possesses a dictator’s prerogative to disappear people off the street and spirit them to CECOT has drawn the reluctant justices in," he wrote, in the article titled "The Supreme Court’s ‘Selective Proceduralism’ Would Suffocate the Constitution."

Serwer noted that on April 7, the justices released an order indicating that the administration was prohibited from deporting immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act, an outdated law from the 18th century, without ensuring due process. Although four justices disagreed about permitting the administration to proceed with deportations, all nine justices endorsed the principle of some level of due process for the detainees. While the act only permits the deportation of foreign nationals, the legal rationale put forth by the administration could potentially allow Donald Trump to mistakenly deport American citizens to El Salvador without making any attempts to bring them back.

ALSO READ: Supreme Court at severe disadvantage in dealing with Trump's 'shocking' behavior: expert "[Justice Sameul] Alito complains that the Court rushed its judgment, acting as though there were some sort of emergency, when in fact there was a genuine emergency, and the rushing was entirely justified," Serwer wrote in the article. "The administration has also flouted a Supreme Court order telling it to 'facilitate' the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident under a protective order who was sent to CECOT 'in error.' Alito and Thomas must be aware that Abrego Garcia remains confined and that both Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and Trump have pretended not to have the power to release him, joking about it in front of cameras in the Oval Office," the writer said.

"Selective proceduralism is probably unavoidable given ideological disagreements among the justices, but under these circumstances it takes on a sinister cast, a pantomime of the rule of law that acquiesces to Trump’s assertion of dictatorial powers inconsistent with the Constitution or with basic principles of due process and civil rights. It facilitates authoritarianism while pretending that laws still matter. If the Trump administration can get away with violating the Constitution because it knows the courts will be too slow to prevent it, then those constitutional rights simply no longer exist," he added.

ALSO READ: Supreme Court's unanimous decision against Trump reveals an important detail