The U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting some Venezuelans in the country who’ve been identified as members of violent gangs, including the terrorist organization, Tren de Aragua.
“The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court,” the unsigned brief states.
More than 50 Venezuelan nationals were scheduled to be deported in the next flight; five flights were already conducted as part of the administration’s removal process under the Enemy Aliens Act.
The flights went to El Salvador, whose president, Nayib Bukele, is working with the Trump administration to detain violent criminal illegal foreign nationals deported from the U.S.
After a previous district court ruling demanding that some Venezuelan nationals sent to El Salvador be returned to the U.S., Bukele said, “too late,” they were already in his prison and he wasn’t complying, The Center Square reported. Bukele has said more than once that he will not remove terrorists from El Salvador’s maximum security prison, CECOT.
In March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act in response to already declaring that the U.S. was being invaded by criminal foreign nationals, including TdA members, The Center Square reported.
In response, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of five Venezuelans in the U.S. illegally, requesting a district court in the District of Columbia to halt their deportations.
On April 7, the Supreme Court ruled the administration could continue Venezuelan deportations, arguing the lawsuit was filed in the wrong court, The Center Square reported. After the ruling, the ACLU, which filed the first lawsuit, filed lawsuits in New York, Denver and Brownsville, Texas, where the Venezuelans were being detained. In these cases, district court judges ruled against the Trump administration and those cases are being appealed.
The case in question before the Supreme Court is related to two Venezuelans detained in Anson, Texas, where a federal district judge in Abilene refused to grant the ACLU’s emergency request to block their deportation. The ACLU then filed emergency requests in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and with the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, a hearing was held on Friday and the court issued its opinion shortly before 1 a.m. EST Saturday morning. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.
The White House has yet to issue a statement.
Trump invoked the Enemies Alien Act after his administration began aggressively targeting TdA members in response to a record more than 1 million Venezuelans who illegally entered the U.S. under the Biden administration, including TdA members.
Under the Biden administration, for the first time in U.S. history, TdA criminals began operating en masse, terrorizing Americans and noncitizens nationwide; confirmed violent crimes by TdA members were reported in at least 22 states, The Center Square first reported.
Under the Trump administration, Venezuelan repatriation flights first began, paid for by the Venezuelan government, negotiated by the Trump administration, The Center Square reported.
Cooperation between the U.S. and El Salvador expanded under Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, representing a reversal of Biden administration policy that used taxpayer money and planes to transport illegal foreign nationals into the U.S.
