Venezuelan migrants expelled from the United States arrive at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maicetia, Venezuela, Sunday, March 30, 2025.
Cristian Hernandez / AP
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Cristian Hernandez / AP
The Supreme Court blocked on Saturday, the deportations of all Venezuelan on Saturday which was held in northern Texas under an 18th century law.
In a brief prescription, the court ordered the Trump administration not to withdraw the Venezuelans detained at the BlueBonnet detention center “until the new ordinance of this court”.
Judges Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissident.
The High Court acted in an emergency call from the American Civil Liberties Union, stressing that the immigration authorities seemed to move to restart the moves under the extraterrestrial enemy law of 1798. The Supreme Court had declared earlier in April that the deportations could only continue if these on the point of being deleted had a chance to argue in court and had been given ” reasonable “to challenge their movers
“We are deeply relieved that the court temporarily blocked the moves. These people were imminent in danger of spending the rest of their lives in a brutal Salvador prison without ever having had a regular procedure,” said Aclu lawyer Lee Genernt, in an email.
On Friday, two federal judges refused to intervene as a lawyer for men launched a desperate legal campaign to prevent their expulsion. The 5th United States Court of Appeal has not yet acted.
One of the judges said that the case had raised legitimate concerns, but he could not make an order.
The ACLU had already continued to block the deportations of two Venezuelans held in the installation of BlueBonnet and asked for an order prohibiting the moves of any immigrant from the region under the Act on Extraterrestrial enemies.
In an emergency file early Friday, ACLU warned that the immigration authorities accumulated other Venezuelan men who are required to be members of the Gang of Tren of Aragua, which would make them submit to the use by President Donald Trump of the law.
The law has only been invoked at three times before in the history of the United States, more recently during the Second World War to hold Japanese-American civilians in the internment camps. The Trump administration argued that he had given them the power to quickly withdraw immigrants whom they identified as gang members, regardless of their immigration status.
Following the unanimous ordinance of the High Court on April 9, the Federal Judges of Colorado, New York and South Texas quickly made the orders which relax the withdrawal of the detainees under the AEA until the administration provides them with a process in order to make complaints in court.
But there had not been such an order issued in the Texas region which covers BlueBonnet, which is located 24 miles north of Abilene at the northern end of the State.
District judge James Wesley Hendrix, one appointed appointed by Trump, refused this week to ban the administration from withdrawing the two men identified in the ACLU trial because immigration and customs application filed under oaths that they are not immediately expelled. He also fell to emit a wider order prohibiting the withdrawal of all Venezuelans in the region under the law because he declared that the moves had not yet started.
But the ACLU Friday file included statements under the oath of three distinct immigration lawyers who said that their BlueBonnet customers had received documents indicating that they were members of Tren from Aragua and could be expelled by Saturday. In one case, immigration lawyer Karene Brown said that his client, identified by the initials, was invited to sign papers in English, even if the customer only spoke Spanish.
“Ice informed the MGF that these papers came from the president and that he will be expelled even if he did not sign it,” wrote Brown.
Genernt declared during a Friday evening hearing before the district judge James E. Boasberg in Washington, DC, that the administration initially moved the Venezuelans in its immigration establishment in southern Texas for expulsion. But as a judge prohibited deportations in this area, he channeled them towards the installation of Bluebonnet, where there is no order of this type. He said witnesses reported that the men were busy on buses on Friday evening to be taken to the airport.
Hendrix not accepting ACLU’s request for an emergency prescription, the group turned to Boasberg, who initially interrupted the deportations in March. The Supreme Court has judged that the orders against expulsion could only come from jurisdictions where immigrants were detained, which, according to Boasberg, made it powerless on Friday.
“I am sympathetic to everything you say,” Boasberg told Genernt. “I just don’t think I have the power to do anything.”
Boasberg noted this week that it was likely that the Trump administration committed criminal contempt by disobeying its initial deportation ban. He was concerned about the fact that the document according to which the ice gave the detained persons had not clearly indicated that they had the right to challenge their dismissal to the court, which he thought that the Supreme Court had forced.
Drew Ensign, a lawyer for the Ministry of Justice, did not agree, saying that people who have planned the expulsion would have a “minimum” of 24 hours to challenge their dismissal to the court. He said that no flight was scheduled for Friday evening and that he was not aware of any Saturday, but the Ministry of Internal Security said he was reserving the right to withdraw people.
Ice said it wouldn’t comment on the dispute.
Also Friday, a Massachusetts judge made her temporary ban on the administration expelled from immigrants who have exhausted their calls to countries other than their country of origin unless they are informed of their destination and have had the possibility of opposing if they are confronted with torture or death there.
Some Venezuelans submitted to the Trump extraterrestrial enemies Act were sent to Salvador and hosted in his main prison.
