After their lawyers filed an urgent petition citing an imminent risk of removal without the proper process, the country’s top court issued the order to stop the men in immigration custody early on Saturday. The Trump administration’s response to the court’s authority could be impacted by the decision, leading to even a constitutional crisis.
In an unsigned order, the justices wrote that the government must not remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until this Court makes a further order.
Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, two of the Supreme Court’s nine justices, disagreed with the decision.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed an emergency appeal in response to the court’s decision, arguing that it appeared that immigration authorities were moving to restart removals in accordance with the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
A heated debate surrounds the constitutional authority of the US over Trump’s use of the wartime legislation, which was last used during World War II, to deport alleged Tren de Aragua gang members in claiming they are “conducting irregular warfare” in the US.
In April, the Supreme Court had ruled that deportations could only occur if those who were about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and had “reasonable time” to file a lawsuit against their pending removals.
“The Court’s temporary blocking of the removals is greatly gratifying to us.” Without ever having had access to proper legal counsel, these individuals were in imminent danger of spending the rest of their lives imprisoned in a brutal Salvadorian prison, according to ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt in an email to The Associated Press.
The decision has not yet been made public by the White House.
The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has not yet taken action, which has prompted the ACLU to submit a petition directly to the Supreme Court. Two federal judges have refused to intervene in stopping the most recent deportation proceedings.
Some of the men had already been loaded onto buses, according to the ACLU, and their deportations were announced.
A government lawyer claimed at a hearing on Friday that he was unaware of DHS’s plans to deport the men that day but that there might be deportations on Saturday.
I spoke with DHS, she said. In a separate but related case, Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign told a district court that they are unaware of any current plans for flights tomorrow.
238 alleged Venezuelan gang members and 23 alleged Salvadoran gang members were taken to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador in March by the Trump administration.
Despite a US federal judge’s temporary suspension of the expulsions, the deportations occurred.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a resident of the US state of Maryland, was one of the deported people who had secured a protection order to stop the detention.
Garcia was later found guilty of violating a separate Supreme Court order to bring him back to the US, but the Trump administration later acknowledged this.
It’s “very obvious that the president” is “blatantly, flagrantly… defying the order from the Supreme Court,” said Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, who met with Garcia on Thursday in El Salvador.
Source: Aljazeera
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