The Supreme Court on Saturday paused the deportations of Venezuelans held in northern Texas for the time being. The court directed the trump administration not to remove the Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet Detention Center until further order. It was a 7-2 verdict with Justice Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito dissenting. The verdict came in an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union which contended that immigration authorities appeared to be moving to restart removals under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
“We are deeply relieved that the Court has temporarily blocked the removals. These individuals were in imminent danger of spending the rest of their lives in a brutal Salvadoran prison without ever having had any due process,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said in an email.
President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act in March to order officials to immediately detain and remove Venezuelan migrants with alleged ties to Tren de Aragua. The Act has only been invoked three previous times in US history, most recently during World War II to hold Japanese-American civilians in internment camps. The Trump administration contended the Act gave it the power to swiftly remove immigrants it identified as members of the gang, regardless of their immigration status.
Reacting to the verdict, right-wing author Ann Coulter wrote: “Luckily, the Supreme Court wasn’t elected president. Keep deporting the infiltrators, POTUS.”
Will the Trump administration defy court order again?
The White House did not issue any statement reacting to the court order though it will not be anything new if they defy the order as the Trump administration already ignored the court order involving Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The court ordered the administration to bring back the mistakenly deported man. But the Trump administration made it clear that he would not be brought back. The issue has snowballed into a major political row and Marylan Dem senator went to El Salvador to meet the man, imprisoned in Salvador’s most notorious detention center and even Donald Trump issued a statement mocking him.
