WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Supreme Court Friday ruled the Trump Administration cannot deport—as it has already done—Venezuelan detainees Trump accused of being members of a gang, using a seldom-used wartime law, according to numerous news reports, including the New York Times.
The justices, on a 7-2 vote, referred the case back to a lower federal appeals court, and told it to determine if the migrants, as they claimed, could not be legally deported under the Alien Enemies Act, the centuries-old wartime law, wrote the Times.
“The justices said the appeals court should also examine what kind of notice the government should be required to provide that would allow migrants the opportunity to challenge their deportations,” and said, “its order would remain in place until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled and the Supreme Court considered any appeal from that ruling,” added the Times.
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and Justice Clarence Thomas dissented.
The justices said, explained the NY Times in its coverage, the “stakes facing the detainees are ‘particularly weighty,’ and noted the case of “Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was ‘deported in error’ to the El Salvador prison in March.” The Trump administration has said it is unable to bring him back, despite a SCOTUS order to “facilitate” his return.
The justices wrote that “notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster.”
The Times said, “Trump reacted with fury to the ruling,” charging on social media, “THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!,” adding, “The Supreme Court of the United States is not allowing me to do what I was elected to do,” and called it “a bad and dangerous day for America.”
Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union and lawyer for the migrants, added the Times, said the decision “means that more individuals will not secretly be sent to a brutal prison in El Salvador,” adding the administration’s use of the wartime law “during peacetime, without due process, raises issues of far-reaching importance.”
The NY Times wrote the “Trump administration has attempted to use the law as a tool in its signature initiative to speed the deportation of millions of migrants, leading to a clash with a skeptical judiciary.
“Several lower court judges have concluded that the administration has exceeded the scope of the law, which can be invoked only when the United States has been subject to ‘invasion’ or ‘predatory incursion,’ and have blocked the deportation of groups of Venezuelans.”
The Times added, “Friday’s order came after a high-stakes legal fight between the Trump administration and lawyers from the A.C.L.U. in one of those challenges. The lawyers rushed to the court on April 18 after getting word that Venezuelan migrants detained in Texas and accused of being members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, had received notices of imminent removal and were being loaded on buses, presumably to be taken to the airport.
“The group quickly filed a lawsuit in a federal trial court in Abilene, Texas, on behalf of two of the Venezuelans held at the detention center. Justice Department lawyers responded, telling a trial court judge that they had no immediate plans to deport the detainees.”
