The showdown is nearly upon us.

Friday the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump regime cannot deport a group of Venezuelans while the matter is being litigated in the courts. The regime can’t merely allege that they’re members of a violent gang; it must give them sufficient time to challenge their deportations. And it can’t merely assume that the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act gives it authority. Both the facts of these cases and the law have to be hashed out in lower courts.

The justices called the detainees’ interests “particularly weighty” because of the risk of removal to a notorious prison in El Salvador where the migrants could face indefinite detention.

Score a big one for the rule of law.

Of course, Justice Samuel Alito dissented, joined by Clarence Thomas. The two have moved so far into the dense fog of irrational right-wing legal blather that they have lost all credibility.

The big news is that the three Trump appointees — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — joined the chief justice and the three Democratic appointees to set a limit on Trump.