SCOTUS Pauses Alien Enemies Act Deportation

As they seek a challenge to their removals under the wartime Alien Enemies Act, the Supreme Court said Friday it will keep preventing the Trump administration from deporting Venezuelan men held in northern Texas. Attorneys representing a group of Venezuelan migrants who claimed they faced “imminent” risk of removal under President Trump’s March proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 requested an emergency injunction, which the top court granted.  It upholds an earlier ruling last month by the Supreme Court that temporarily barred the administration from using the 18th-century legislation to free the Venezuelan migrants detained at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas. Deportations were halted by the Supreme Court’s midnight April decree “until further order of this court.” The high court stated that lower courts should examine issues pertaining to the Alien Enemies Act “expeditiously,” but it did not address whether the Trump administration had the legal authority to deport Venezuelans under the statute.  It further said that the plaintiffs may be removed by the government using “other lawful authorities” in addition to the wartime legislation.
 

Source: CBS News