As Americans prepare to celebrate Independence Day, legal scholars and civil rights advocates are warning that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision has imperiled the very constitutional protections the holiday is meant to honor. In a sharply worded op-ed published this week, Stanford Law Professor Mark Lemley argues that the Court’s June 23 ruling in Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D. has effectively gutted due process protections and undermined the judiciary’s role as a check on executive power.

At the center of the controversy is a case involving the Trump administration’s expanded deportation practices, which have come under fire for forcibly transferring immigrants — and in some cases, potentially U.S. citizens — to countries with which they have no connection, including active war zones like Libya and South Sudan. Legal experts say the transfers violate federal statutes and constitutional guarantees of due process.