The Trump administration is taking the battle over mass deportations to the Supreme Court after a weeks-long battle with a federal judge. The White House on Friday filed an emergency appeal asking the Supreme Court to allow it to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to allow it to deport illegal immigrants.
Controversy arose when the Trump administration sent over 200 Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador, where they are being housed in a maximum-security detention center. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg tried to halt the deportations, ordering the White House to return the deported illegals. However, the plane transporting them was already in the air.
Among the deportees were suspected members of the Tren de Aragua street gang. Still, the conflict between the Trump administration and Boasberg continued, and it appears the highest court in the land will decide whether the president can use the Alien Enemies Act to remove illegals.
In the filing, the administration asked the Supreme Court to vacate the lower court’s order stopping the deportee’s removal. It argues that the court’s interference threatens national security and that the White House identified the individuals as gang members “based on specific descriptions of TdA’s hostile activities and close entwinement with the Maduro regime in Venezuela.”
The White House further asserts that the judge’s actions constitute a universal injunction under the guise of class certification. “When it is easier to certify classes of designated foreign terrorists than a garden-variety class action over defective products, something has gone seriously awry,” the filing reads.
Boasberg’s ruling has nullified Trump’s authority under the Alien Enemies Act, according to the filing.
The Alien Enemies Act passed in the 18th century, allows the president to detain or deport foreigners from countries at war with the United States. Critics of Trump’s invocation of the law argue that since the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela, he cannot use the measure to remove illegals.
The filing points out that this case raises “fundamental questions about who decides how to conduct sensitive national-security -related operations in this country. “The Constitution supplies a clear answer: the president,” the document reads.
This case will determine whether a president can use the Alien Enemies Act to target suspected members of violent street gangs like Tren de Aragua and MS-13.
The Trump administration previously attempted to appeal Boasberg’s ruling, but was unsuccessful, which means it has to appeal to the Supreme Court.
By a 2-to-1 vote, a panel of federal judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit kept in place Judge Boasberg’s pause on the deportations in a decision issued on March 26. One of the judges who voted to maintain the temporary pause, Patricia A. Millett, wrote that the government’s deportations denied the immigrants “even a gossamer thread of due process.”
The government argues that people involved in Tren de Aragua should be subject to deportation as subjects of a hostile nation because they are closely aligned with the Venezuelan government and the leadership of the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. The Trump administration has also argued that their arrival in the United States constitutes an invasion under the act.
The emergency application filed by the administration will land on Chief Justice John Roberts’ desk. He can rule on the matter by himself or refer it to the rest of the court for a vote.
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