Category World News

The United States Supreme Court has granted an emergency petition from a group of migrants in Texas, barring the use of an 18th-century wartime law to expedite their removals.

Friday’s unsigned decision (PDF) is yet another blow to the administration of President Donald Trump, who has sought to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to swiftly deport undocumented immigrants out of the US.

Only two conservative justices dissented: Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

While the high court has yet to rule on the merits of Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, it did issue “injunctive relief” to Venezuelan migrants faced with expulsion under the centuries-old law.

“We have long held that ‘no person shall be’ removed from the United States ‘without opportunity, at some time, to be heard’,” the court majority wrote in its ruling.

It reaffirmed a previous opinion that migrants in the US are entitled to due process – in other words, they are entitled to a fair hearing in the judicial system – before their deportation.

Friday’s case was brought by two unnamed migrants from Venezuela, identified only by initials. They are being held in a detention centre in north Texas as they face deportation.

The Trump administration has accused them, and others from Venezuela, of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang. It has further sought to paint undocumented migration into the US as an “invasion” and link Tren de Aragua’s activities in the US to the Venezuelan government, an assertion that a recently declassified intelligence memo disputes.

That, the Trump administration has argued, justifies its use of the Alien Enemies Act, which has only been used three times prior in US history – and only during periods of war.

But Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act has spurred a legal backlash, with several US district courts hearing petitions from migrants fearing expulsion under the law.

Multiple judges have barred the law’s use for expedited removals. But one judge in Pennsylvania ruled the Trump administration could deploy the law – provided it offer appropriate notice to those facing deportation. She suggested 21 days.

The Supreme Court on Friday did not weigh in on whether Trump’s use of the law was merited. Instead, its ruling – 24 pages in total, including a dissent – hewed closely to the issue of whether the Venezuelans in question deserved relief from their imminent deportation under the law.

The majority of the nine-justice bench noted that “evidence” it had seen in the case suggested “the Government had in fact taken steps on the afternoon of April 18” to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, even transporting the migrants “from their detention facility to an airport and later returning them”.

The justices asserted that they had a right to weigh in on the case, in order to prevent “irreparable harm” to the migrants and assert their jurisdiction in the case. Otherwise, they pointed out a deportation could put the migrants beyond their reach.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh went a step further in a separate opinion, calling on the Supreme Court to issue a final and binding ruling in the matter, rather than simply grant this one petition.

“The circumstances call for a prompt and final resolution, which likely can be provided only by this Court,” he said, agreeing with the majority’s decision.

Thomas and Alito, in their dissent, argued the Supreme Court had not afforded enough time to a lower court to rule on the emergency petition.

In the aftermath of the ruling, Trump lashed out on Truth Social, portraying the Supreme Court’s majority as overly lax towards migrants.

“THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!” Trump wrote in the first of two consecutive posts.

In the second, he called Friday’s decision the mark of a “bad and dangerous day in America”. He complained that affirming the right to due process would result in “a long, protracted, and expensive Legal Process, one that will take, possibly, many years for each person”.

He also argued that the high court was preventing him from exercising his executive authority.

“The Supreme Court of the United States is not allowing me to do what I was elected to do,” he wrote, imagining a circumstance where extended deportation hearings would lead to “bedlam” in the US.

His administration has long accused the courts of interference in his agenda. But critics have warned that Trump’s actions – particularly, alleged efforts to ignore court orders – are eroding the US’s constitutional system of checks and balances.

In a statement after the ruling, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) praised the court’s decision as a bulwark against human rights abuses.

“The court’s decision to stay removals is a powerful rebuke to the government’s attempt to hurry people away to a Gulag-type prison in El Salvador,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.

“The use of a wartime authority during peacetime, without even affording due process, raises issues of profound importance.”

The Supreme Court currently boasts a conservative supermajority, with six right-leaning judges and three left-leaning ones.

US President Donald Trump has concluded his three-nation tour of the Gulf region.

A recent United States ambassador to Ukraine has published an opinion column explaining her decision to resign her post, and criticising President Donald Trump for siding with Russia over Ukraine.

On Friday, former diplomat Bridget Brink published an article in the Detroit Free Press, a newspaper in her home state of Michigan, expressing concern about current US foreign policy.

The US has long been an ally of Ukraine, and since 2014, it has provided the war-torn country with military assistance, as it fends off Russia’s attempts at invasion and annexation.

But Brink wrote that there has been a shift since President Trump returned to office for a second term in January.

“I respect the president’s right and responsibility to determine U.S. foreign policy,” she wrote.

“Unfortunately, the policy since the beginning of the Trump administration has been to put pressure on the victim, Ukraine, rather than on the aggressor, Russia.”

Brink pointed out that her time at the US Department of State included roles under five presidents, both Democrat and Republican. But she said the shift under the Trump administration forced her to abandon her ambassadorship to Ukraine, a position she held from 2022 until last month.

“I cannot stand by while a country is invaded, a democracy bombarded, and children killed with impunity,” she said of the situation in Ukraine.

“I believe that the only way to secure U.S. interests is to stand up for democracies and to stand against autocrats. Peace at any price is not peace at all ― it is appeasement.”

Brink’s position as ambassador has spanned much of the current conflict in Ukraine. After annexing Crimea and occupying other Ukrainian territories starting in 2014, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022. Brink assumed her post that May.

But the slow-grinding war in Ukraine has cost thousands of lives and displaced many more. While campaigning for re-election in 2024, Trump blamed the war’s eruption on the “weak” foreign policy of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden.

He also pledged to end the war on his first day back in office, if re-elected. “I’ll have that done in 24 hours. I’ll have it done,” Trump told one CNN town hall in 2023.

Since taking office, however, Trump has walked back those comments, calling them an “exaggeration” in an interview with Time Magazine.

Still, his administration has pushed Ukraine and Russia to engage in peace talks, as part of an effort to end the war. How those negotiations have unfolded under Trump, however, has been the source of scrutiny and debate.

Ukraine and its European allies have accused Trump of sidelining their interests in favour of his one-on-one negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. They also have criticised Trump and his officials for seeming to offer Russia concessions even before the negotiations officially began.

On February 12, for instance, his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told an international defence group in Brussels that Ukraine may never regain some of its occupied territory.

“We must start by recognising that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,” he said, adding that membership in the NATO military alliance was also unlikely. “Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.”

Trump has gone so far as to blame Ukraine’s NATO ambitions as the cause of the war, something critics blast as a Kremlin talking point.

Amid the negotiations, the relationship between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has grown increasingly testy. Already, during his first term, Trump faced impeachment proceedings over an alleged attempt to pressure Zelenskyy by withholding military aid.

During his second term, though, Trump upped the ante, calling the Ukrainian president a “dictator” for not holding elections, something prohibited under Ukraine’s wartime laws.

One public display of frustration came in the White House on February 28, when Trump shouted at Zelenskyy, calling him “disrespectful” during a gathering with journalists.

The US president also used the appearance to defend his warm relationship with Russia’s president. “ Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump told Zelenskyy.

The shouting match led to a brief suspension of US aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

In the months since, their two countries have agreed to a deal that would establish a joint investment fund that would allow Washington access to Ukraine’s mineral resources — a long-desired Trump goal.

The US president has voiced concern about the amount of money invested in Ukraine’s security, with Congress appropriating more than $174bn since the war began in 2022. He has also argued that a US mining presence would help deter foreign attacks in Ukraine.

But peace between Russia and Ukraine has remained elusive. Talks between the two warring parties on Friday ended after less than two hours, though they did agree to an exchange of 1,000 prisoners each.

In her op-ed column, Brink was clear that she held Russia responsible for the ongoing aggression.

“Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, it has done what can only be described as pure evil: killed thousands of civilians, including 700 children, with missiles and drones that hit their homes and apartments in the dead of night,” she wrote.

She added that Europe has not experienced “violence so systematic, so widespread and so horrifying in Europe since World War II”.

Brink warned that, if the US did not stand up to Russia, a domino effect could occur, paving the way for military assaults on other countries.

An aide worker in Gaza who has witnessed Israel’s increased bombardment of the enclave calls it “shocking,” as Palestinians struggle with a lack of food and medical supplies. Afeef Nessouli with Gila International tells Al Jazeera Israel is also keeping medical workers from coming in or out.