The Supreme Court on Friday made a major ruling barring Donald Trump’s attempt to deport members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua under an 18th-century wartime law.
All three of the justices appointed by Donald Trump during his first term sided with Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberals, with only Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissenting.
The justices acted on an emergency appeal from lawyers for Venezuelan men who have been accused of being gang members, a designation that the administration says makes them eligible for rapid removal from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
The court indefinitely extended the prohibition on deportations from a north Texas detention facility under the alien enemies law. The case will now go back to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which declined to intervene in April.
Trump – who has waged rhetorical war against lower courts throughout his second term – quickly voiced his anger at the court on Truth Social.
‘THE SUPREME COURT WON´T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!’ he posted on his Truth Social platform.
Trump said he was trying to get rid of ‘the worst murderers, drug dealers, gang members, and even those who are mentally insane, who came into our Country illegally.’
He complained that the court’s ruling will force ‘a long, protracted, and expensive Legal Process, one that will take, possibly, many years for each person, and one that will allow these people to commit many crimes before they even see the inside of a Courthouse.’
The Supreme Court on Friday made a major ruling barring Donald Trump’s (pictured) attempt to deport members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua under an 18th-century wartime law
The justices acted on an emergency appeal from lawyers for Venezuelan men who have been accused of being gang members, a designation that the administration says makes them eligible for rapid removal from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798
‘The result of this decision will let more CRIMINALS pour into our Country, doing great harm to our cherished American public,’ he added.
Trump then thanked Justices Alito and Thomas ‘for attempting to protect our Country’ before declaring it ‘a bad and dangerous day for America!’
The high court action is the latest in a string of judicial setbacks for the Trump administration’s effort to speed deportations of people in the country illegally.
The president and his supporters have complained about having to provide due process for people they contend didn’t follow U.S. immigration laws.
The court had already called a temporary halt to the deportations, in a middle-of-the-night order issued last month.
Officials seemed ‘poised to carry out removals imminently,’ the court noted Friday.
The case is among several making their way through the courts over Trump´s proclamation in March calling the Tren de Aragua gang a foreign terrorist organization and invoking the 1798 law to deport people.
The high court case centers on the opportunity people must have to contest their removal from the United States – without determining whether Trump’s invocation of the law was appropriate.
All three of the justices appointed by Donald Trump during his first term sided with Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberals, with only Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissenting
‘We recognize the significance of the Government´s national security interests as well as the necessity that such interests be pursued in a manner consistent with the Constitution,’ the justices said in an unsigned opinion.
At least three federal judges have said Trump was improperly using the AEA to speed deportations of people the administration says are Venezuelan gang members.
On Tuesday, however, a Trump-appointed judge in Pennsylvania signed off on the use of the law.
Stephanie Haines, a Trump appointee, also said the administration hasn´t been giving enough notice to people facing removal under the AEA.
She ordered the administration to provide at least 21 days notice – far longer than the 12 hours that some deportees have been given.
‘This case poses significant issues that are deeply interwoven with the constitutional principles upon which this Nation´s government is founded,’ Haines wrote.
‘In approaching these issues, the Court begins by stressing the questions that it is not resolving at this time.’
The ruling doesn’t address whether the administration can remove people under other immigration laws, nor does it address whether Trump can invoke the Alien Enemies Act to deport people who simply migrated to the U.S. and who aren’t members of a foreign terrorist organization, Haines wrote.
The justices refuse to sign off on Trump’s proclamation calling Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization, allowing members to be deported
Many Tren de Aragua members were deported as part of the president’s immigration crackdown and sent to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison
She also did not weigh in on whether people suspected of being members of other gangs could be removed under the act.
But she did say the Act can be used to remove Venezuelan citizens who are at least 14 years old, who are in the U.S. without legal immigration status, and who are members of Tren de Aragua.
‘Having done its job, the Court now leaves it to the Political Branches of the government, and ultimately to the people who elect those individuals, to decide whether the laws and those executing them continue to reflect their will,’ Haines wrote.
The court-by-court approach to deportations under the AEA flows from another Supreme Court order that took a case away from a judge in Washington, D.C., and ruled detainees seeking to challenge their deportations must do so where they are held.
In April, the justices said that people must be given ‘reasonable time’ to file a challenge.
On Friday, the court said 24 hours is not enough time but has not otherwise spelled out how long it meant. The administration has said 12 hours would be sufficient.
The Supreme Court on Friday also made clear that it was not blocking other ways the government may deport people.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, with Alito complaining that his colleagues had departed from their usual practices and seemingly decided issues without an appeals court weighing in.
The violent Venezuelan super gang Tren de Aragua had expanded to take foothold in 16 states across the US, Homeland Security officials warned last November before Trump was elected
‘But if it has done so, today´s order is doubly extraordinary,’ Alito wrote.
In a separate opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he agreed with the majority but would have preferred the nation’s highest court to jump in now definitively, rather than return the case to an appeals court.
‘The circumstances,’ Kavanaugh wrote, ‘call for a prompt and final resolution.’
Trump issued a proclamation in March claiming that Tren de Aragua was invading the U.S.
He said he had special powers to deport immigrants, identified by his administration as gang members, without the usual court proceedings.
After the proclamation, the administration began deporting people designated as Tren de Aragua members to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
The proclamation and deportations sparked a flurry of lawsuits in multiple states – including the one that led to Haines’ ruling Tuesday.
That case was brought a Venezuelan national who says he fled to the U.S. with his wife and children in 2023 after facing extortion in his own country.
Earlier this week, Pennsylvania Judge Stephanie Haines (pictured) said the Act can be used to remove Venezuelan citizens who are at least 14 years old, who are in the U.S. without legal immigration status, and who are members of Tren de Aragua
The act would allow the President to forcibly remove citizens of an ‘enemy nation’ who it deems to be ‘dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States’ or involved in ‘treasonous’ acts
He was arrested in February after a neighbor reported that he is a member of Tren de Aragua – a claim the man vehemently denies.
The man is identified only by his initials in the lawsuit. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Haines initially approved the case as a class action, temporarily blocking the Trump administration from using the AEA to deport any migrants in her district.
But she lifted that designation Tuesday, clearing the way for deportations to resume as long as the people being removed are given at least 21 days notice in English and Spanish as well as an ‘opportunity to be heard’ on any objections they might have.
Many Tren de Aragua members were deported as part of the president’s immigration crackdown and sent to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison.
In November before Trump took office, it was revealed the Venezuelan super gang’s territory covered half of America’s population, posing challenges for law enforcement agencies across the US who are trying to combat the mob’s wave of crime.
The gang had spread its tentacles across Virginia, Washington DC, Montana and Wyoming, according to an internal Homeland Security department intelligence memo obtained by The New York Post.
Officials warned that TdA’s arrival in the US capital and nearby Virginia coincides with ‘increases in migrant populations’ in the area, the memo states.
TdA was reportedly targeting DC because the city provides easy travel access to wealthy northern Virginian suburbs where gangsters are carrying out thefts, robberies and assaults.
The mob’s bloodthirsty members have also increased their ‘violent tendencies’ and has become more engaged with ‘lower-level fraud and theft schemes’ that allow them to send stolen funds ‘back to South America as a means of financing additional criminal enterprises’, according to the intelligence document.
Homeland security officials warned that as the ‘population of Venezuelan nationals continues to increase, the potential for violent TdA migrants is highly probable’.
In addition to its expanded territory, TdA also had footholds in New York, New Jersey, California, Florida, Illinois, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and Colorado.
