The US Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to pause the deportation of a group of accused Venezuelan gang members.
A civil liberties group is suing the administration over planned deportations of Venezuelans detained in north Texas under an 18th-century wartime law.
On Saturday, the Supreme Court ordered the government to “not remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court”.
Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito dissented.
President Donald Trump had invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which grants the president of the United States sweeping powers to order the detention and deportation of natives or citizens of an “enemy” nation without following the usual processes.
Trump has accused Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) of “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion” on US territory.
Out of 261 Venezuelans deported as of 8 April to a notorious mega-jail in El Salvador, 137 were removed under the Alien Enemies Act, a senior administration official told CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner.
A lower court temporarily blocked these deportations on 15 March.
The Supreme Court initially ruled on 8 April that Trump could use the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members, but deportees must be given a chance to challenge their removal.
“The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs,” the justices wrote in their decision earlier this month.
The lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that resulted in Saturday’s order said the Venezuelan men detained in north Texas had been given notices in English, despite speaking only Spanish, that they would be deported imminently, and had not been told they had a right to contest the designation in a federal court.
“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 lawsuit read.
