Supreme Court Halts New Trump Deportations Under Wartime Law
Wall Street Journal
Early-morning order temporarily blocks attempt to remove group of Venezuelan migrants using the Alien Enemies Act
By Michelle Hackman, Mariah Timms and Jacob Gershman
Updated April 19, 2025 5:06 am ET
The Supreme Court blocked, for now, the deportation of a group of Venezuelan migrants whom the Trump administration is seeking to remove under a rarely used wartime law.
The order came early Saturday after lawyers for the migrants asked the justices to step in on an emergency basis to halt their deportations as reports came that immigration officials began loading the detainees onto buses for deportation under the Alien Enemies Act.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the order.
“These men were in imminent danger of spending their lives in a horrific foreign prison without ever having had a chance to go to court,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who is lead counsel on the case. “We are relieved that the Supreme Court has not permitted the administration to whisk them away the way others were just last month.”
President Trump is using a novel application of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to claim certain powerful gangs are equivalent to foreign governments in wartime. The administration in March designated members of Tren de Aragua as enemy aliens and moved swiftly to remove alleged gang members from the U.S. to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
The plaintiffs facing a similar fate, represented by the ACLU, had mounted a fast-moving effort to halt the deportations on several fronts. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, the federal judge in Washington who is embroiled in the legal fight over the last wave of removals, held an emergency motion hearing by video Friday evening, at which he expressed doubt about having jurisdiction to intervene and declined to take any immediate action.
A Justice Department attorney told Boasberg that the government wasn’t aware of any deportation flights under the wartime law scheduled for Saturday but planes could take off over the weekend.
The ACLU filed similar motions before a district judge in Texas and the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Friday. The organization was attempting to obtain a court injunction barring any removals while the legal fight is ongoing.
Venezuelan men in the government’s custody have been transferred from across the country to the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas, in recent days and had been told they were at imminent risk of being deported using the wartime act, according to the ACLU and written declarations by several of the men’s attorneys.
The government hasn’t made clear how much time the men have to contest their deportations, lawyers said. In court documents, the ACLU said some were told they are being sent to El Salvador. The Homeland Security Department, which is carrying out the deportations, declined to answer questions about what a spokeswoman described as “ongoing counter terrorism operations.”
The expulsion of hundreds of migrants without hearings sparked legal battles that have gone to the Supreme Court twice in less than a month. The justices in a narrow ruling confirmed individuals designated as alien enemies are entitled to notice of pending removal from the country and an opportunity to challenge their deportations before a federal judge in the district where they had been detained.
In response to the Supreme Court ruling, individuals designated as alien enemies who are still held in U.S. custody have filed challenges in several states, and judges in those cases issued temporary blocks on categorical removals under the Alien Enemies Act.
Hearings are set for next week in several cases. The cases argue the government still hasn’t implemented a system of notice that would allow those slated for deportation to seek a court’s intervention in time.
“Saying to people, here’s your notice and we’re going to deport you immediately, do what you need to do. That is not proper due process,” said Michelle Brane, the executive director of Together and Free, an immigrant advocacy organization. “I don’t think that’s what any court means when they say give people a reasonable amount of time.”
The DHS spokeswoman said the agency was “complying with the Supreme Court’s ruling.”
Meanwhile, a federal appeals court in Washington on Friday evening ordered Boasberg to hold off on any criminal contempt proceedings against the Trump administration over earlier deportation flights of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador.
The 2-1 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit halted for now a contempt order Boasberg issued Wednesday in which he accused Trump officials of flouting his authority by expelling alleged Venezuelan gang members last month around the same time the judge barred their removal. The appeals panel said its decision to put things on pause “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits.”
The Trump administration denied that it deliberately disobeyed any of the judge’s orders, which were later vacated by the Supreme Court, and argued that Boasberg was overstepping his authority.
Early-morning order temporarily blocks attempt to remove group of Venezuelan migrants using the Alien Enemies Act
By Michelle Hackman, Mariah Timms and Jacob Gershman
Updated April 19, 2025 5:06 am ET
The Supreme Court blocked, for now, the deportation of a group of Venezuelan migrants whom the Trump administration is seeking to remove under a rarely used wartime law.
The order came early Saturday after lawyers for the migrants asked the justices to step in on an emergency basis to halt their deportations as reports came that immigration officials began loading the detainees onto buses for deportation under the Alien Enemies Act.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the order.
“These men were in imminent danger of spending their lives in a horrific foreign prison without ever having had a chance to go to court,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who is lead counsel on the case. “We are relieved that the Supreme Court has not permitted the administration to whisk them away the way others were just last month.”
President Trump is using a novel application of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to claim certain powerful gangs are equivalent to foreign governments in wartime. The administration in March designated members of Tren de Aragua as enemy aliens and moved swiftly to remove alleged gang members from the U.S. to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
The plaintiffs facing a similar fate, represented by the ACLU, had mounted a fast-moving effort to halt the deportations on several fronts. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, the federal judge in Washington who is embroiled in the legal fight over the last wave of removals, held an emergency motion hearing by video Friday evening, at which he expressed doubt about having jurisdiction to intervene and declined to take any immediate action.
A Justice Department attorney told Boasberg that the government wasn’t aware of any deportation flights under the wartime law scheduled for Saturday but planes could take off over the weekend.
The ACLU filed similar motions before a district judge in Texas and the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Friday. The organization was attempting to obtain a court injunction barring any removals while the legal fight is ongoing.
Venezuelan men in the government’s custody have been transferred from across the country to the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas, in recent days and had been told they were at imminent risk of being deported using the wartime act, according to the ACLU and written declarations by several of the men’s attorneys.
The government hasn’t made clear how much time the men have to contest their deportations, lawyers said. In court documents, the ACLU said some were told they are being sent to El Salvador. The Homeland Security Department, which is carrying out the deportations, declined to answer questions about what a spokeswoman described as “ongoing counter terrorism operations.”
The expulsion of hundreds of migrants without hearings sparked legal battles that have gone to the Supreme Court twice in less than a month. The justices in a narrow ruling confirmed individuals designated as alien enemies are entitled to notice of pending removal from the country and an opportunity to challenge their deportations before a federal judge in the district where they had been detained.
In response to the Supreme Court ruling, individuals designated as alien enemies who are still held in U.S. custody have filed challenges in several states, and judges in those cases issued temporary blocks on categorical removals under the Alien Enemies Act.
Hearings are set for next week in several cases. The cases argue the government still hasn’t implemented a system of notice that would allow those slated for deportation to seek a court’s intervention in time.
“Saying to people, here’s your notice and we’re going to deport you immediately, do what you need to do. That is not proper due process,” said Michelle Brane, the executive director of Together and Free, an immigrant advocacy organization. “I don’t think that’s what any court means when they say give people a reasonable amount of time.”
The DHS spokeswoman said the agency was “complying with the Supreme Court’s ruling.”
Meanwhile, a federal appeals court in Washington on Friday evening ordered Boasberg to hold off on any criminal contempt proceedings against the Trump administration over earlier deportation flights of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador.
The 2-1 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit halted for now a contempt order Boasberg issued Wednesday in which he accused Trump officials of flouting his authority by expelling alleged Venezuelan gang members last month around the same time the judge barred their removal. The appeals panel said its decision to put things on pause “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits.”
The Trump administration denied that it deliberately disobeyed any of the judge’s orders, which were later vacated by the Supreme Court, and argued that Boasberg was overstepping his authority.
