The US Supreme Court is allowing President Donald Trump to continue to use a rarely-invoked wartime powers law to carry out rapid mass deportations of alleged gang members – for now.
A lower court had temporarily blocked the deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador on 15 March, ruling that the administration’s actions under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act needed further scrutiny.
Trump has alleged that the migrants were “conducting irregular warfare” against the US and could therefore be removed under the Act.
While the ruling is a win for the administration, the 5-4 ruling clarified that deportees must be given an opportunity to challenge their removal.
“The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs,” the justices wrote in the unsigned decision on Monday.
“The only question is which court will resolve that challenge,” they wrote.
Monday’s ruling said the challenge – brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of five migrants – was raised improperly in a Washington DC court and not in Texas, where the migrants are confined.
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal justices in dissenting with the majority ruling.
In the dissent, they wrote that the administration’s “conduct in this litigation poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law”.
At least 137 people have been deported by the Trump administration under the Alien Enemies Act, a move widely condemned by rights groups.
The act, last used in World War Two, grants the US president sweeping powers to order the detention and deportation of natives or citizens of an “enemy” nation without following the usual processes.
It was passed as part of a series of laws in 1798 when the US believed it would enter a war with France.
Trump called Monday’s ruling a “great day for justice in America”.
“The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Monday’s decision vacates an earlier ruling by federal judge James Boasberg, which had temporarily blocked the use of the law to carry out the deportations.
Boasberg had dismissed the government’s response to his order as “woefully insufficient”. The White House said the judge’s order itself was not lawful and was issued after two flights carrying the men had already left the US.
A federal appeals court later kept Boasberg’s block in place.
Rights groups and some legal experts have called the invocation of the Act unprecedented, arguing it has only previously been used after the US officially declared a war, which under the US constitution only Congress can do.
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