He Supreme Court On Saturday he blocked, for now, the deportations of any Venezuelan held in northern Texas under a law of war of the 18th century.
In a brief order, the court ordered the Trump administration not to eliminate Venezuelans held at the Bluebonnet detention center “to the additional order of this court.”
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dismit.
The Superior Court acted in an emergency appeal of the American Union of Civil Liberties that argued that the immigration authorities seemed to be moving to restart the moves under the Alien enemies law of 1798. The Supreme Court had said at the beginning of April that deportations could only proceed if those about to be eliminated had the opportunity to argue their case in the Court and they were “reasonable time” to dispute their pending removals.
“We are deeply relieved that the Court has temporarily blocked the removals. These individuals were imminent of spending the rest of their lives on a brutal saving prison without having had any due process,” said ACLU lawyer, Lee Gelernt, in an email.
On Friday, two federal judges refused to intervene as lawyers for men launched a desperate legal campaign to avoid deportation, even when a judge said the case raised legitimate concerns. The early morning of Saturday, the 5th Court of Appeals of the United States Circuit also refused to issue an order that protected the detainees from being deported.
The administration is expected to return quickly to the Supreme Court in an effort to persuade the judges to lift their temporary order.
The ACLU had already sued to block deportations of two Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet installation and sought an order that produces removals of any immigrant in the region under the alien enemies law.
In an emergency presentation at dawn on Friday, the ACLU warned that the immigration authorities accused other Venezuelan men of being members of the Trena de Aragua gang, which would make them subject to the use of the law by President Donald Trump.
The law has only invoked three previous times in the history of the United States, more recently during World War II to celebrate Japanese-American civilians in the internment fields. The Trump administration said it gave them power to quickly eliminate immigrants who identified as gang members, regardless of their immigration status.
After the order of the Unanimous Superior Court on April 9, federal judges in Colorado, New York and South Texas The orders issued immediately, which prohibits the elimination of detainees under the AEA until the administration provides a process to make claims in court.
But such order had not been issued in the Texas area covered by Bluebonnet, which is located 24 miles north of Abilene at the north end of the state of the state.
The United States District Judge, James Wesley Hendrix, appointed by Trump, this week he refused to prohibit the administration from eliminating the two men identified in the AGU demand because the application of immigration and customs presented sworn statements that they would not be immediately deported. It also seemed to issue a broader order that prohibits the elimination of all Venezuelans in the area under the law because he said that movements had not yet begun.
But ACLU’s presentation included affidavits of three separate immigration lawyers who said that their clients in Bluebonnet received paperwork that indicate that they were members of Aragua train and could be deported on Saturday. In one case, immigration lawyer Karene Brown said that her client, identified by initials, was told to sign documents in English despite the fact that the client only spoke Spanish.
“ICE informed the MGM that these documents came from the president and that he will be deported even if he did not sign it,” Brown wrote.
Glernt said at a hearing on Friday night before the James E. Boasberg district judge in Washington, DC, that the administration initially transferred Venezuelans to its immigration installation in southern Texas for deportation. But since a judge prohibited deportations in that area, he has channeled them to the Bluebonnet installation, where there is no such order. He said witnesses reported that men were being loaded on buses on Friday night to be taken to the airport.
With Hendrix, I do not agree with the ACL request for an emergency order, the group resorted to Boasberg, who initially arrested deportations in March. The Supreme Court ruled that the orders against deportation could only come from judges in jurisdictions where immigrants were held, which Boasberg said it made it impotent on Friday.
“Sympathy with everything you are saying,” Boasberg told Gelernt. “I just don’t think I have the power to do anything about it.”
Boasberg this week discovered that there is a probable cause that the Trump administration committed criminal contempt disobeying its prohibition of initial deportation. He was concerned that the newspaper that ICE was giving to the retained did not make it clear that they had the right to challenge their removal in court, which believed that the Supreme Court ordered.
Drew Ensign, a lawyer for the Department of Justice, did not agree, saying that deportation scheduled would have a “minimum” of 24 hours to challenge their elimination in court. He said that no flights were scheduled for Friday night and that he had no knowledge of Saturday, but the National Security Department said he reserved the right to eliminate people.
ICE said he would not comment on the litigation.
Also on Friday, a Massachusetts judge made his temporal prohibition On the administration, deporting immigrants who have exhausted their appeals to countries other than their countries of origin unless they are informed of their destination and are given the opportunity to object if they faced torture or death there.
Some Venezuelans subject to Trump’s alien enemy law have been sent to El Salvador and housed in their notorious main prison.
