‘I will make a prediction’: Alan Dershowitz unravels whether Supreme Court will let Trump deport gang members

Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said on Newsmax Wednesday that the Supreme Court will ultimately side with the Trump administration’s efforts to deport foreign gang members.

A divided Fifth Circuit panel ruled Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act against Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang exceeded the law’s intended scope, with two judges saying the gang’s actions fell short of the national conflict the statute was meant to address. During an appearance on “The Record with Greta Van Susteren,” Dershowitz said the case hinges on how broadly justices are willing to interpret immigration statutes in light of modern threats.

“It’s a close question. Reasonable people can interpret the statute as including a massive entry into the United States on the orders of another country. It was a two-to-one decision,” Dershowitz told host Van Susteren. “Nobody can predict what the Supreme Court will decide. I will make a prediction, however. In the end, the Trump administration will win the right to deport Venezuelan gang members either under some inherent authority, under a different statute, or under a different interpretation of this statute.”

Dershowitz said the lower court’s ruling may not stand.

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“So this is not a foregone conclusion that this result will last. I predict it will not. I think the president will be recognized as having the right to prevent alien gang members from remaining in the country one way or another,” Dershowitz said.

First formed inside a Venezuelan prison in 2013, Tren de Aragua has grown into a violent international crime syndicate with as many as 5,000 members operating across the globe. The gang has firmly established a presence in the U.S., with confirmed activity in at least 15 states, prompting Trump to designate it, along with other major Latin American gangs, as a foreign terrorist organization by executive order.

Roughly 8 million Venezuelans have fled under the authoritarian rule of President Nicolas Maduro. Many of those Venezuelans crossed into the U.S. amid the Biden-era border surge. Some entered illegally, while others were paroled under former President Joe Biden’s Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans program, a pathway exploited by individuals later found to have links to Tren de Aragua, according to Customs and Border Protection data and arrest records.