By Kolawole Ojebisi
The US Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to pause its planned deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members under an 18th-century law.
The order came, on Saturday, after rights lawyers filed an emergency appeal to halt the deportation of migrants currently held in a facility in the southern state of Texas.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in its emergency filing on Friday night that the group of Venezuelans held in Texas had been told “they will be imminently removed under the AEA, as soon as tonight.”
Attorneys for several of the Venezuelans previously deported had said their clients were not members of Tren de Aragua, had committed no crimes, and were targeted largely based on their tattoos.
“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 Supreme Court’s brief order issued early Saturday said.
Recall that US President Donald Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA) last month to begin rounding up Venezuelan migrants accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang before expelling them to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
The obscure law has only previously been used during the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II.
Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to expel millions of undocumented migrants, has accused Venezuela of “perpetrating an invasion” of the United States through the entry of alleged Tren de Aragua members.
The Supreme Court said this month that anyone facing deportation under the AEA must first be given an opportunity to legally challenge their removal.
