The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to temporarily suspend the deportation of Venezuelan men in immigration custody after saying their lawyers were at risk of removal without a previously mandated judicial review.
“The government has been instructed not to exclude members of the presumed class of detainees from the United States until further orders from this court,” the judiciary said Saturday.
Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas publicly opposed.
The order is the latest example of how the country’s courts are challenging the Trump administration’s overhaul of the immigration system, characterized by many deportations that were illegal or carried out without a legitimate process.
in Court filing on emergency Fridayan American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer said dozens of Venezuelan men in the Bluebonnet Detention Center at a Texas immigration and customs facility have been given notices indicating they are classified as members of the Tren de Lagua gang. They said men would be deported under the Alien Enemy Law (AEA) and said “the removal is imminent and will happen tonight or tomorrow.”
The ACLU warned that immigration authorities have accused other Venezuelan men who were detained there of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which they are subject to deportation.
The ACLU said many Texas men had already been loaded onto buses, urging them to take control of the court before they were deported.
The ACLU has already sought to stop deportation under the alien enemy laws of the Venezuelans Act, held at the Texas Detention Center, and is asking judges to issue an order banning the removal of local immigrants under the law.
The Supreme Court has permitted several deportations under the AEA, but previously held that it could only proceed if those about to be removed had the opportunity to discuss the case in court and were given “reasonable time” to challenge the pending denial.
Federal judges in Colorado, New York and Southern Texas have issued orders banning the removal of detainees under the AEA until the administration provided a process for making claims in court. However, in the Texas region, there was no such order covering BlueBonnet, located 24 miles north of Abilene, at the northern tip of the state.
This week, District Judge James Wesley Hendrix refused to ban the administration from excluding the two men identified in the ACLU lawsuit, as immigration officers filed a declaration of oath that they would not be deported immediately.
However, the ACLU’s Friday application includes a declaration of oath from three separate immigration attorneys who said Bluebonnet’s clients are members of Tren de Aragua and were given documents indicating that they could be deported by Saturday. In one case, immigration attorney Karen Brown said that the client, who was identified by initials and who spoke only Spanish, was told to sign the papers in English.
“ICE told FGM that these papers came from the president and that they would be deported if he didn’t sign them,” Brown wrote.
The ACLU has asked Hendrix to issue a temporary order halting such deportation. Later Friday, the ACLU asked Washington District Judge James Boasberg to issue a similar emergency order after a lack of response from Hendrix.
In a court application, the lawyer says the client received it document Friday from an immigration officer entitled “Notice and Warrant of Arrest and Elimination under Alien Enemy Law.”
“You are… determined to be a member of Tren de Aragua.”
“You are determined to be the enemy of foreigners who are subject to anxiety, suppression and removal from the United States. This is not an elimination under the Immigration and Nationality Act,” the notice states.
Washington Democrat Pramila Jayapal before the Supreme Court decision Condemnation reported plans. Jayapal wrote on social media as the Trump administration “continues to destroy people.”
