Justice Department activates untested court for 'alien terrorist' deportations

The Alien Terrorist Removal Court was created in 1996 (during the Clinton administration) to allow the government to seek deportation of alleged terrorists without disclosing classified information. This past week, the Trump administration's Justice Department filed the first-ever petition to this court, which had never been used since its creation.

Coverage across center and right outlets largely agrees on the core facts—the court's origin, its purpose of protecting state secrets, and the first-time use of it by the Trump administration. Differences are mostly stylistic: center outlets use more procedural language describing the court as 'untested' or 'highly classified,' while the right-leaning outlet adds slightly more skeptical framing by calling the court 'secretive and dormant' and referring to 'so-called' alien terrorists, which subtly questions the labeling. No left-leaning coverage was provided for comparison.