On early Saturday morning (US time), the American Supreme Court ordered to temporarily halt the deportation of a group of accused Venezuelan gang members under the ancient Alien Enemies Act. According to the new development, the detainees can’t be removed “until further order of this Court.”
Having sued the Trump administration over the decision, rights group American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sought to stop the alleged Venezuelan gang members’ removal, citing that the US was not at war. Consequently, Venezuela was also critical of the use of the wartime act, saying it “unjustly criminalises Venezuelan migration” and “evokes he darkest episodes in the history of humanity, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps.”
The Saturday order, drawing dissents from Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, is believed to have stemmed from the lawsuit that argued the Venezuelans’ held in detention in Texas were presented with their deportation notices in English even though a detainee only speaks Spanish. “Without this Court’s intervention, dozens or hundreds of proposed class members may be removed to a possible life sentence in El Salvador with no real opportunity to contest their designation or removal,” the ACLU lawsuit pressed.
The new order comes after the court permitted Trump to use the ages-old act, but with limitations, last week.
Donald Trump invoked centuries-old wartime act to deport immigrants
President Donald Trump sent the Venezuelan immigrants to a notorious El Salvador jail. His decision invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which grants the president sweeping powers to order detentions and deportation of citizens of an “enemy” nation without following official procedure.
The POTUS deported over 200 Venezuelans, alleged to be Tren de Aragua gang member. Of these, 137 were removed under the wartime Alien Enemies Act, a senior administration official previously told CBS News.
Deportation: What is the Alien Enemies Act?
Invoking the centuries-old law, Trump accused these immigrants of “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion” on US territory, as per the BBC. According to the act, “whenever there shall be a declared war […] or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened” against the US, all “subjects of the hostile nation or government” could be “apprehended, restrained, secured and removed, as alien enemies.” It was last invoked in World War Two, making it the one of only three times it’s been used.
Trump initially slipped out mentions of the Alien Enemies Act during his inaugural address, saying he would invoke it to “eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to US soil.”
With the US president’s use of the Alien Enemies Act repeatedly branded as illegal, Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, said in a statement, “The only reason to invoke such a power is to try to enable sweeping detentions and deportations of Venezuelans based on their ancestry, not on any gang activity that could be proved in immigration proceedings.”