More than 50 Venezuelan migrants had been "loaded on to buses, presumably headed to the airport" from Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to halt its plans to deport them early Saturday morning.
"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 majority wrote in an unsigned order following an emergency petition that was filed by the ACLU Friday night.
Right-wing Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
The Trump administration's attempt to deport the men under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798—which has only been invoked three other times in U.S. history, during times of war—came after the Supreme Court ruled last month that the White House can deport people under the law, but that migrants must be given an opportunity to contest their removals in court districts where they are being detained in the United States.
The ACLU on Friday filed legal challenges in two federal courts Friday night before asking the Supreme Court to intervene to stop the Trump administration from deporting more people to El Salvador, where hundreds of people have been sent in recent weeks and incarcerated at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT)—with the White House saying they will never return.
The ACLU's lead counsel in the case, Lee Gelernt, said the migrants had received notices of removal, but had not been given the chance to contest.
The notices were written only in English and did not inform them of their right to court proceedings.
"There's no box to check to say I want to contest," Gelernt said Friday evening. "There's nothing that says there is a right to contest, much less the time frame."
During a hearing Friday night in front of Chief Judge James Boasberg in the District Court of Washington, D.C. Gelernt said the ACLU is prepared to file lawsuits in every federal judicial district in the U.S. to ensure the Trump administration complies with the earlier Supreme Court order requiring due process for people targeted for deportation.
Drew Ensign, a lawyer for the Justice Department, told Boasberg that no deportation flights were scheduled for people being held at Bluebonnet on Friday but that the administration "reserve[d] the right" to begin them on Saturday. He claimed officials had given migrants the required notice and were not required to explain how they could contest their deportation.
Boasberg said this week he believed there was "probable cause" to find the Trump administration in contempt of court—punishable by prison time or fines—for its refusal to comply with his order last month demanding that deportation flights carrying Venezuelan migrants be turned around. Contempt proceedings were halted by an appeals could Friday evening.
Numerous people have been swept up in President Donald Trump's mass deportation operation despite there being no evidence, in many cases, that they've committed crimes other than being in the U.S. without authorization—a civil offense.
Officials have so far disregarded a unanimous Supreme Court ruling demanding that Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the White House has falsely accused of being a "convicted gang member," be returned to the U.S. As Common Dreamsreported this week, a 19-year-old Venezuelan migrant was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement even as the ICE agents acknowledged he was not the person they were looking for.
In the cases brought to court by the ACLU on Friday night, a 19-year-old identified in court papers as Y.S.M. was shown a Facebook photo in which he was in the presence of another person holding a gun—evidence that immigration agents said proved he was a member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
The young man's lawyer said that upon being questioned, he informed the agents that the gun was actually a water pistol.
The people the Trump administration was attempting to deport Friday, said the ACLU Friday night, "may be removed to a possible life sentence in El Salvador with no real opportunity to contest their designation or removal."
Gelernt toldThe Washington Post early Saturday that the ACLU was "relieved that the Supreme Court has not permitted the administration to whisk them away the way others were just last month."
