In a late-night order on Saturday, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to deport Venezuelans using the Alien Enemies Act as a justification for the immediate removal of apparent gang members.
The order regarded a group of accused Venezuelan gang members detained in the Bluebonnet Detention Center in northern Texas, and was in response to the American Civil Liberties Union’s emergency request that the court block any more removals without due process to El Salvador.
“There is before the Court an application on behalf of a putative class of detainees seeking an injunction against their removal under the Alien Enemies Act,” the brief order said. “The matter is currently pending before the Fifth Circuit. Upon action by the Fifth Circuit, the Solicitor General is invited to file a response to the application before this Court as soon as possible. The Government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court.”
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from the order.
Attorneys with the ACLU, who are representing the Venezuelans, said that on Friday, more immigrants were being driven to the airport for removal. An attorney with the Department of Justice denied any flights were going on that day, but added that the federal government had the right to deport the immigrants, according to the New York Post, adding that the ACLU attorneys then gave a Texas judge less than an hour to respond before taking the request to a 5th Circuit panel, where they ultimately rejected the appeal — but not till after the Supreme Court made their decision.
In his dissent statement, Alito, with the full support of Thomas, said the actions made by the Supreme Court before the lower court or the federal government had the chance to respond were “unprecedented and legally questionable.”
“I refused to join the Court’s order because we had no good reason to think that, under the circumstances, issuing an order at midnight was necessary or appropriate.”
ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt told The Associated Press in an email that they were “deeply relieved” with the court’s block on deportations. “These individuals were in imminent danger of spending the rest of their lives in a brutal Salvadoran prison without ever having had any due process.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, responded in support of the judge’s dissent statement. “SCOTUS messed up. Alito called it out.”
Since March, the Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport more than 200 alleged members of Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal organization from Venezuela.