The Trump administration was aware that a deluge of legal challenges was likely to follow. They were prepared for the lawfare, as is the president, who has been fighting for his life well before the 2024 election got underway. The question regarding the use of the Alien Enemies Act to accelerate the deportation of illegal aliens is the primary legal question right now. President Trump is trying to deport a horde of Tren de Aragua members, a Venezuelan gang that’s designated as a terror group. There were supposed to be at least two dozen more members shipped out, but the Supreme Court blocked it.
Initially, the Court ruled that the executive could invoke this 1798 law, but it had to provide illegals with sufficient notice and time to challenge their deportation. For the group in question, the American Civil Liberties Union got involved and discovered they had no options to challenge their deportation presented to them by the government. I couldn't care less, but Justices John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett sided with the liberal wing, while Justices Alito and Thomas dissented (via WaPo):
MORE: The high court’s ruling came just as a conservative panel of the 5th circuit court of appeals dismissed an emergence effort to broadly block the administration from conducting summary deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. https://t.co/ZdnCwJ85El pic.twitter.com/gwxa507RwI
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) April 19, 2025
Send them ALL to Amy Coney Barrett's house with tents and sleeping bags https://t.co/Ihuk7rs4TS
— Peachy Keenan (@KeenanPeachy) April 19, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration early Saturday to halt the deportations of at least 30 alleged Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act.
“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 order reads.
Two justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., dissented.
The Trump administration was preparing to deport the Venezuelan men, immigration advocates said Friday as they scrambled to find a federal court they could persuade to step in and block the removals before it was too late.
Attorneys for the detained migrants pressed federal judges in Texas, Washington and New Orleans, as well as the Supreme Court to intervene, arguing that the government had not provided those targeted a meaningful opportunity to challenge the reasons for their removals.
[…]
“There’s no box to check to say I want to contest,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said during a hastily convened Friday evening hearing in federal court in Washington. “There’s nothing that says there is a right to contest, much less the time frame.”
Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign told the court that the government had no plans to fly any of the targeted migrants out of the country Friday night but “reserve[d] the right” to begin them as soon as Saturday.
He maintained that officials need only provide 24 hours’ notice to targeted individuals and were not required to instruct them on how to contest deportation decisions. As of Friday evening, there were no known flights officially scheduled for Saturday, Ensign said.
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Trump and his team knew that appeals and court battles would be multi-round events, a best-of-seven matchup. They’ll get it squared away. It’s not whether he could invoke the Alien Enemies Act now; it’s whether the government is given enough time for due process. Once the administration demonstrates that it has satisfied the latter, we can expect deportations of this sort to continue.
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