Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union asked the Supreme Court on Monday to clarify what kind of legal notice their clients, alleged Tren de Aragua members, should receive before they are deported under the Alien Enemies Act.
The attorneys provided what they described as a “startling list of deficiencies” in the notices they believed the Trump administration was currently giving to Venezuelan migrants detained in the northern district of Texas.
The ACLU attorneys said they believed the notices were in English only, even though the detainees “largely speak only Spanish.” The attorneys also said the notices left out any language letting the migrants know they could legally challenge their status as Tren de Aragua members and omitted any details about when they would be deported.
The ACLU shared on its website a photo of what it said was a notice received by a Venezuelan migrant whom the Trump administration deemed an “alien enemy.”
The notice says the recipient is a Tren de Aragua member who is eligible to be removed under the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law that President Donald Trump is attempting to use to bypass other immigration laws and immediately deport alleged gang members to prison abroad.
The Supreme Court previously ruled that the migrants about to be deported under the Alien Enemies Act must receive “reasonable” notice so that they have an opportunity, before they are deported, to file a habeas corpus lawsuit that challenges Trump’s implementation of the act or challenges the allegation that they are a gang member.
Since then, immigration lawyers across the country have been scrambling to file what has become more than half a dozen lawsuits, raising alarm that migrants who are not dangerous criminals are at risk of being improperly deported under the act. They have argued in their lawsuits that the courts must intervene because the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia highlights that the Trump administration will not correct any erroneous deportations.
In its request to the Supreme Court, the ACLU cited an NBC News report that revealed that buses carrying migrants from a detention center in Texas to an airport turned around on Friday amid fast-moving legal activity. That day, the ACLU filed a flurry of emergency requests that ended with the high court issuing a surprise 7-2 order after midnight temporarily halting Alien Enemies Act deportations out of the northern Texas region.
Solicitor General John Sauer immediately responded to the Supreme Court by arguing that the ACLU’s claims were premature. Sauer said the high court did not need to intervene while individualized lawsuits played out in districts across the country because the Trump administration had assured those lower courts that it would not deport anyone who brought lawsuits until their claims were fully adjudicated.
The ACLU attorneys said that did not jive with their understanding that migrants, some of whom have no legal representation, were being given notices that they were alleged Tren de Aragua members and were being placed on airport-bound buses within 24 hours of receiving the notices.
Sauer, for his part, argued that class action lawsuits in general were inappropriate under the Alien Enemies Act and that no court should certify a class action lawsuit in such cases.
“The limited habeas review available in an AEA case cannot be pursued in a class action,” Sauer said, signaling that the government believed individual lawsuits were the only route migrants could take to attempt to challenge their deportations to foreign prisons.
ATTORNEYS WARN MORE ALIEN ENEMIES ACT DEPORTATIONS COULD BE IMMINENT
The previous (and thus far only) round of Alien Enemies Act deportations occurred last month and involved federal authorities flying the alleged gang members to a megaprison in El Salvador.
Sauer also asked the high court to clarify that the Trump administration is allowed to remove alleged Tren de Aragua members through Title 8, another more routine deportation authority.