The Supreme Court halted action in a rapidly growing case involving a group of immigrants in Texas who claim the Trump administration was attempting to deport them early Saturday morning, pausing the deportation of individuals who could be subject to the Alien Enemies Act. Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, two conservative Justices, dissented from the court’s short ruling.
The Venezuelans involved in the case, according to their lawyers, were in imminent danger of being deported and had not been given enough time to contest their deportation, so they filed an emergency appeal before the top court on Friday. The court did not provide an explanation of its reasons in its short judgment on Saturday.
After the case is heard by a federal appeals court in Louisiana, the judge mandated that the Trump administration reply to the emergency appeal.
“Until further order of this court,” the court said, “the government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States.”
Lawyers for the migrants in Texas who thought the Trump administration was going to deport them quickly under the Alien Enemies Act were previously informed by a federal judge in Washington, DC, that despite his concerns about the administration’s actions, he lacked the authority to stop the deportations.
During an emergency hearing on Friday night, US District Judge James Boasberg told a lawyer representing the migrants,
“I understand everything you’re saying, but I don’t think I have the power to do anything.”
Boasberg asked an administration lawyer whether the administration would proceed with the deportations on Friday night or Saturday before declaring his intention to stay out of the matter. Although there are no scheduled planes, the Department of Homeland Security said that it has the authority to remove the migrants on Saturday, Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign told Boasberg.
Additionally, the attorneys for the migrants asked the 5th US Circuit Court of cases, which hears cases from Texas, to step in. Given the current state of the matter before the Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit, Boasberg said on Friday that it was difficult for him to suggest he should become involved in this disagreement.
In their first case in his court, the migrants’ attorneys, who were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward, sought emergency relief from Boasberg in order to challenge President Donald Trump’s use of the expansive 18th-century wartime legislation known as the Alien Enemies Act.
With Saturday’s ruling, Trump’s abuse of power has now reached the Supreme Court twice. Trump was given permission to utilize the power last week, but the court stipulated that migrants who are detained under the act must be informed that they are covered by it and given the chance to have their deportation reviewed by the federal court where they are being held. The judges also decided that migrants may only contest their deportations in court districts that included the detention centers.
The current dispute is a reflection of the administration’s willingness to take aggressive action to continue deportations under the Aliens Enemies Act, which permits the government to circumvent some of the procedures in the immigration statutes that normally govern the process of removing illegal migrants from the United States.
In a fruitless attempt to persuade Boasberg to allow even a temporary halt to the administration’s intentions, the migrants’ lawyer stated on Friday,
“We hear men are being requested to change clothes.”
Boasberg has imposed contempt proceedings on the government for allegedly disobeying a previous order he gave in the case, which was subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court, which aimed to stop the first wave of deportation flights in response to the president’s invocation of the legislation in mid-March.
An appeals court, however, placed an administrative halt on Boasberg’s plans on Friday night so that it could consider whether or not such procedures should proceed.
When the Supreme Court originally heard the case, it issued an unsigned decision stating that the government must give migrants enough notice so they may contest their deportation in accordance with 18th-century legislation.
In his testimony on Friday, ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt presented further information about the administration’s notification to the migrants that they had been flagged for deportation under the Alien Enemies Act. A picture of one such notification was sent to the court, Gelernt said, adding that inmates were given notice of their transfer less than twenty-four hours ago, with no obvious way to contest it.
Although the Supreme Court’s ruling required the government to provide notice, Ensign, the DOJ counsel, maintained that the government was not required to provide a forum for contesting the deportations.
“Anyone who says they want to challenge their removal is given a process to do so,” he told the court.
Boasberg said,
“I definitely think the notice is very troubling,”
and he questioned whether it adhered to the Supreme Court’s decision.
“But I don’t think I have the ability to grant relief.”