Supreme Court allows Trump to deport Venezuelans under wartime law, but
only after judges' review
[April 08, 2025]
By MARK SHERMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump
administration to use an 18th century wartime law to deport Venezuelan
migrants, but said they must get a court hearing before they are taken
from the United States.
In a bitterly divided decision, the court said the administration must
give Venezuelans who it claims are gang members “reasonable time” to go
to court.
But the conservative majority said the legal challenges must take place
in Texas, instead of a Washington courtroom.
The court’s action appears to bar the administration from immediately
resuming the flights that last month carried hundreds of migrants to a
notorious prison in El Salvador. The flights came soon after President
Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since
World War II to justify the deportations under a presidential
proclamation calling the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.
The majority said nothing about those flights, which took off without
providing the hearing the justices now say is necessary.
In dissent, the three liberal justices said the administration has
sought to avoid judicial review in this case and the court “now rewards
the government for its behavior.” Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined
portions of the dissent.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it would be harder for people to challenge
deportations individually, wherever they are being held, and noted that
the administration has also said in another case before the court that
it’s unable to return people who have been deported to the El Salvador
prison by mistake.
“We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than this,” she
wrote.
The justices acted on the administration’s emergency appeal after the
federal appeals court in Washington left in place an order temporarily
prohibiting deportations of the migrants accused of being gang members
under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act.
“For all the rhetoric of the dissents,” the court wrote in an unsigned
opinion, the high court order confirms “that the detainees subject to
removal orders under the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity
to challenge their removal."
The case has become a flashpoint amid escalating tension between the
White House and the federal courts. It's the second time in less than a
week that a majority of conservative justices has handed Trump at least
a partial victory in an emergency appeal after lower courts had blocked
parts of his agenda.
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Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States peer through
windows of an Eastern Airlines plane upon arriving at Simon Bolivar
International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, Sunday, March 30,
2025. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Several other cases are pending, including over Trump's plan to deny
citizenship to U.S.-born children of parents who are in the country
illegally.
Trump praised the court for its action Monday.
"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. A GREAT
DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site.
The original order blocking the deportations to El Salvador was
issued by U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, the chief judge at
the federal courthouse in Washington.
Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit
on behalf of five Venezuelan noncitizens who were being held in
Texas, hours after the proclamation was made public and as
immigration authorities were shepherding hundreds of migrants to
waiting airplanes.
ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said the “critical point" of the high
court’s ruling was that people must be allowed due process to
challenge their removal. "That is an important victory,” he said.
Boasberg imposed a temporary halt on deportations and also ordered
planeloads of Venezuelan immigrants to return to the U.S. That did
not happen. The judge held a hearing last week over whether the
government defied his order to turn the planes around. The
administration has invoked a “ state secrets privilege ” and refused
to give Boasberg any additional information about the deportations.
Trump and his allies have called for impeaching Boasberg. In a rare
statement, Chief Justice John Roberts said “impeachment is not an
appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial
decision.”
___
Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this
report.
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