The Trump administration just did something no administration has done in 30 years: it filed the first-ever application with the Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC), a special tribunal Congress created in 1996 that has never been used, not once, until now.

The ATRC was designed as a narrow last resort for removal cases so sensitive they cannot be handled through normal immigration courts without jeopardizing national security. Congress built in strict guardrails: federal district court judges review applications, and each use requires a legal finding that ordinary removal proceedings are genuinely insufficient. But in its three decades of existence, no administration, Republican or Democrat, found the bar high enough to actually use it. Now the Trump administration is resurrecting this zombie court, and its own presiding judge has already pushed back. Presiding Judge Joan N. Ericksen questioned whether the government's application even establishes the required connection between the respondent's conduct and the specific sections of the law the DOJ cited.

What makes this especially troubling is what the ATRC permits: the government can rely on classified evidence that the person facing deportation may never see. Someone could be expelled from the United States based on accusations they have no meaningful ability to contest. During the law's passage in 1996, then-Senator Joe Biden called secret-evidence deportation "about as un-American as it gets."

Legal experts warn this first-ever use could normalize secret-evidence deportation proceedings and invite broader application over time. Congress needs to act now: hold oversight hearings, clarify the ATRC's intended scope, and ensure no administration can use it as a shortcut around basic due process.

Sign this petition to demand that Congress investigate the Trump administration's revival of the ATRC and establish clear guardrails before this zombie court becomes a permanent tool of executive power.