Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued a sharp rebuke of the court’s order temporarily blocking the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport a group of Venezuelans in north Texas.
The order was issued after the American Civil Liberties Union petitioned the Supreme Court following rejections to halt the action in multiple lower federal courts on Friday. Justices Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from the decision, and in it, said a statement from Alito would be forthcoming. Hours after the order, Alito offered his dissent, which was joined by Thomas.
Alito slammed his colleagues as having “hastily and prematurely granted unprecedented emergency relief,” questioning whether the Supreme Court had jurisdiction to offer the relief it granted. He also took issue with the court offering the order despite not ordering or receiving “a response by the Government regarding either the applicants’ factual allegations or any of the legal issues presented by the application.”
“In sum, literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support for its order, and without providing any explanation for its order. I refused to join the Court’s order because we had no good reason to think that, under the circumstances, issuing an order at midnight was necessary or appropriate,” Alito wrote.
“Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law,” he added.
The Saturday order came after the ACLU had alleged in its court filings that the Trump administration had notified multiple migrants in the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas, that they were subject to the Alien Enemies Act, and the ACLU feared deportations would begin as soon as Saturday.
SUPREME COURT BLOCKS TRUMP FROM DEPORTING FOREIGN NATIONALS UNDER ALIEN ENEMIES ACT
Last month, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 on the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, authorizing the rapid deportation of migrants from countries the U.S. is at declared war with or who are attempting an invasion. He declared an invasion by the group, and deported a group of Venezuelan nationals to a prison in El Salvador last month.
Since the president’s invocation of the AEA, there have been various legal battles over the action. The Supreme Court previously ruled weeks ago that the Alien Enemies Act may be used to deport Tren de Aragua members for now but that all who could be removed were subject to notice and due process.