Washington, May 16 (Prensa Latina) The U.S. Supreme Court today blocked President Donald Trump’s plans by rejecting his decision to move forward with the deportation of a group of immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
The decision, a setback for Trump, sided with some 200 Venezuelan immigrants held at a Texas detention center, who were facing deportation if the sweeping powers of the archaic wartime law were invoked.
The justices returned the case to an appeals court to decide the underlying questions, including whether the president’s action is legal and how much advance notice migrants who would be affected by the measure should have.
Trump—who has other challenges to his executive orders in other courts across the country—wants to use this law to expedite deportations and avoid the reviews normally required before any such procedure.
Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito publicly dissented.
There is a precedent. On March 15, the Trump administration—despite the opposition of a federal judge—sent more than 250 migrants to a mega-prison in El Salvador, most of them Venezuelans whom the United States, without providing evidence, associates with the Tren de Aragua criminal organization (gang).
Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to transfer these migrants to the Terrorist Confinement Center in the Central American nation.
lam/dfm
