A few days ago, President Trump invoked the 226-year-old Alien Enemies Act and flew hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador in the dead of night. In doing so, he arguably ignored a district court order and caused liberal talking heads to explode all over the country. Legal “experts,” The New York Times reported, say it’s a “constitutional crisis.”
But wait. Over a thousand American legal academics had already declared a “constitutional crisis” last month. Around the same time, Adam Schiff on MSNBC also said we were in a “constitutional crisis.” So did The Atlantic. So did The Washington Post.
The term “constitutional crisis” has been so abused and overused it is losing all meaning. When the president defies the Supreme Court, that will be a real constitutional crisis. We’re nowhere near that yet. Most importantly for those legal experts: Stop crying wolf. No one’s going to believe you if and when the constitutional crisis actually comes.
The Venezuelan deportation may be unconstitutional, as I’ll explain below, but it’s not a crisis.
