SC halts use of 18th-century law for deportations

On Saturday, the Supreme Court temporarily halted the deportation of Venezuelans detained in northern Texas under an old provision from an 18th-century wartime ordinance.
The court issued a brief directive to the Trump administration, ordering that Venezuelan detainees held at the Bluebonnet Detention Center must not be deported until further notice from the judicial body. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the order.
The high court’s decision came in response to an emergency appeal filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which argued that immigration officials seemed to be utilizing the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to resume deportations.
The Supreme Court had previously instructed in April that deportations should not proceed unless affected individuals were given the opportunity to present their case in court and allowed “a reasonable time” to dispute their deportations.
ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt expressed relief at the court’s temporary intervention, highlighting the imminent risk faced by those potentially deported without due process.
Following the court’s decision, the Trump administration filed a request for the Supreme Court to reconsider the hold, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt expressing confidence that the administration would ultimately triumph over what she described as baseless legal challenges by activists.
Despite a desperate legal campaign by attorneys representing the men, two federal judges on Friday refused to intervene. One judge acknowledged that the case posed legitimate concerns, yet the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals similarly declined to issue a protective order for the detainees.
The ACLU had previously initiated legal action to prevent the deportation of two Venezuelans detained at the Bluebonnet facility, seeking an order to halt removals of immigrants in the region under the Alien Enemies Act.
In an emergency court filing, the ACLU claimed that immigration authorities accused some Venezuelan detainees of being affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang, which would potentially invoke the Alien Enemies Act, as per directives from the Trump administration.
The Act, historically applied only three times, was last invoked during World War II for the internment of Japanese-Americans. The administration argued it granted the power to expediently remove alleged gang members, irrespective of their immigration status.
Since the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling on April 9, federal judges in Colorado, New York, and southern Texas had issued orders prohibiting the use of the Act until the administration established a legal process for contesting deportations.
However, no such judicial order had covered northern Texas, where the Bluebonnet facility is situated, 24 miles north of Abilene.
U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, appointed by Trump, declined to issue a removal ban against the two men identified in the ACLU’s lawsuit, noting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had sworn not to deport them immediately. He refrained from broader measures to prevent the deportation of all Venezuelans in the area, stating that deportations had not yet commenced.
Nevertheless, the ACLU’s Friday filing included sworn statements from three immigration attorneys, indicating their clients received documents labeling them as gang affiliates, with potential deportation as early as Saturday. One lawyer, Karene Brown, noted her client was pressured to sign English-language documents despite only speaking Spanish.
The ACLU’s Gelernt, during a Friday evening hearing before District Judge James E. Boasberg in Washington, D.C., explained the administration’s relocation of Venezuelans to the Bluebonnet facility—a move made following a judge’s ban on deportations in south Texas. Gelernt reported that witnesses sighted men being prepped for transport to an airport on Friday evening.
Judge Hendrix’s refusal to grant an emergency injunction prompted the ACLU to approach Boasberg, who had temporarily halted March deportations. However, Boasberg indicated he lacked jurisdictional authority as per the Supreme Court’s ruling, which limited order issuance to the original jurisdictional courts.
Expressing sympathy for the ACLU’s arguments, Boasberg relayed his inability to effect change due to the jurisdictional restraints.
Boasberg has noted probable cause that the Trump administration may have defied his initial deportation orders, considering the documentation immigrants received did not assert their court contestation rights as mandated by the Supreme Court.
Disagreeing with Boasberg, Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign contended that deportees would have at least 24 hours to contest removals in court. He denied knowledge of any scheduled flights on the immediate weekend, with the Department of Homeland Security maintaining the prerogative for removals.
ICE chose not to comment on the ongoing litigation.
Additionally, a Massachusetts judge issued a ruling to permanently block the administration from deporting immigrants who had exhausted their appeals to countries other than their origins, without proper notification or recourse if facing severe risks such as torture.
Some Venezuelans facing Trump’s act had already been deported to places like El Salvador, with detainees assigned to its infamous prisons.