In a court filing, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union said some of the dozens of the men held at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, had already been loaded onto a bus and told they were to be deported.
Shortly after the filing, a government lawyer said he was unaware of plans to deport the men on Friday or Saturday.
“There are no flights tonight and the people I spoke to were not aware of any flights tomorrow,” Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign told a district court in a separate but related case.
The case raises questions about the Trump administration’s adherence to limits set by the Supreme Court. It carries the risk of a significant clash between the two coequal branches of government and possibly even a full-blown constitutional crisis.
The lawyers for the Venezuelans filed with the Supreme Court after failing to get a rapid response from earlier filings on Friday before US District Judge James Hendrix in Abilene, Texas, and the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to block any such deportations.
The ACLU said the men had been handed forms indicating they were classified as members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
At issue is whether the Trump administration has fulfilled the Supreme Court’s standard for providing the detainees due process before shipping them off to another country – possibly to the notorious prison in El Salvador where others have been taken.
It was unclear on Friday how many people were potentially to be deported, and where they might be taken.
The men’s deportation would be the first since the US Supreme Court told the Trump administration on April 7 that it must provide notice to Venezuelan migrants it is seeking to deport under and give them the opportunity to challenge their deportations in court.
In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court allowed removals under that law to continue, but specified that “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.”
Habeas corpus relief refers to the right of detainees to challenge the legality of their detention. It is considered a bedrock right under US law.
The ACLU filed a photo of one of the notices with the court.
“You have been determined to be an Alien Enemy subject to apprehension, restraint, and removal,” read the notice. The recipient’s name was obscured, and it was noted that the migrant refused to sign it on April 18.
“Upon information and belief, individuals have already been loaded on to buses,” the ACLU wrote. “This action is one of Plaintiffs’ only chances to secure the judicial review that the Supreme Court held the government must provide, but that the government is now seeking to jettison.”
Elected last year on a promise to crack down on migrants, Trump invoked the law last month in a bid to bypass normal procedures and swiftly deport alleged members of Tren de Aragua, which his administration labels a terrorist group.
Asked about the planned deportations on Friday, Trump said he was unfamiliar with the particular case but added: “If they’re bad people, I would certainly authorise it.”
“That’s why I was elected. A judge wasn’t elected,” he told reporters at the White House.
Earlier on Friday, Assistant Secretary for US Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement, “We are not going to reveal the details of counter terrorism operations, but we are complying with the Supreme Court’s ruling.”
The Supreme Court did not indicate how much notice should be provided. Lawyers around the country have asked that the migrants be given 30 days’ notice to allow them to contest their deportations. The Trump administration has not said publicly how much notice it intends to give the migrants.
Judges in Manhattan, Denver, and Brownsville, Texas, have issued temporary orders blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act within their district.
On March 15, the Trump administration deported more than 130 alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang to El Salvador, citing the Alien Enemies Act, best known for being used to intern and deport people of Japanese, German and Italian descent during World War Two. Many of the migrants’ lawyers and family members say they were not gang members and had no chance to dispute the government’s assertion that they were.
US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, DC, swiftly blocked any further deportations under the law. Trump then called for Boasberg’s impeachment, prompting a rare rebuke from US Chief Justice John Roberts, who said appeals, not impeachment, are the proper response to adverse court decisions.
Boasberg is now probing whether the Trump administration violated his order to return the migrants, and warned that he could hold officials in contempt of court. The Justice Department asked an appeals court on Friday to pause Boasberg’s investigation.
The Justice Department’s statement that there were no plans for immediate deportations of Venezuelans was made during arguments on Friday in Boasberg’s court. The judge had convened the hearing to weigh the ACLU’s request for an emergency order blocking the administration from deporting people under the Alien Enemies Act without proper legal notice. (Reuters)
