Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act Expands Deportation, Strips Judicial Review

President Bill Clinton signs the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) in response to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, despite the attack having no connection to immigration. While primarily focused on death penalty procedures and terrorism prosecution, the law contains sweeping immigration provisions that dramatically expand deportation grounds, limit judicial review, and establish mandatory detention for broad categories of immigrants. AEDPA passes five months before the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), together comprising the most significant expansion of immigration enforcement since the National Origins Act of 1924.

AEDPA expands the definition of “aggravated felony” triggering mandatory deportation to include offenses previously considered minor, and applies these expanded definitions retroactively to convictions predating the law’s passage. Immigrants who pled guilty to offenses years or decades earlier suddenly face deportation based on reclassification of their old convictions. The law eliminates judicial discretion to grant relief based on family ties, length of residence, or rehabilitation, creating mechanical deportation requirements regardless of individual circumstances. These provisions separate families, deport longtime legal residents, and punish people for offenses that carried no immigration consequences when committed.

Perhaps most consequentially, AEDPA strips federal courts of jurisdiction to review many deportation orders, limiting habeas corpus for immigrants challenging removal. Courts can no longer consider whether deportation is disproportionate punishment or whether an individual merits discretionary relief. This jurisdictional stripping creates an enforcement system operating largely outside judicial oversight, enabling arbitrary and erroneous deportations with no meaningful appeal. Civil liberties organizations warn that using terrorism as justification for immigration restrictions unrelated to terrorism creates a template for security-washing any enforcement expansion. AEDPA demonstrates how crisis events can be leveraged to pass immigration restrictions that would otherwise face resistance, with terrorism framing rendering any limitation on enforcement politically untenable regardless of its relationship to actual security threats.