Last week, the Trump administration filed the first-of-its-kind application with a 30-year-old removal court seeking to deport an immigrant as a suspected “alien terrorist.” The twist is that the court has been dormant for that entire time.

Congress created the special Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC) in 1996 as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. “From now on we can quickly expel foreigners who dare to come to America and support terrorist activities,” President Bill Clinton said when signing the bill into law.

The statute authorized the Chief Justice of the United States to assign five district court judges to review removal applications brought by the attorney general against alleged non-citizen “terrorists” in complex cases involving sensitive national security information.

In its 30 years of existence, that removal court has never received a removal application or conducted any proceedings, even if its five-member body has been fully staffed. Currently, all five judges are also part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, another special court that reviews government applications for foreign intelligence surveillance warrants.

On July 15, the Justice Department filed a single-page application with the special court. Details about the case are sealed. But a........

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