Scotus maintains block on wartime law deportations
The US Supreme Court on Friday kept in place its block on President Donald Trump’s deportations of Venezuelan migrants under a 1798 law historically used in wartime, faulting his administration for seeking to remove them without adequate legal process.
The justices, in a brief and unsigned opinion, granted a request by American Civil Liberties Union lawyers representing the migrants to maintain the halt on the removals for now.
The court on April 19 had ordered a temporary stop to the administration’s deportations of dozens of migrants being held at a detention center in Texas.
The deportations are part of the Republican president’s immigration crackdown since he returned to office in January.
The ACLU lawyers had asked the Supreme Court to intervene after they reported on April 18 that the administration was set to imminently remove the migrants without the required notice or opportunity to contest the removals. The justices on Friday agreed.
“Under these circumstances, notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster,” the court wrote in its ruling.
Notice required
Due process generally requires the government to provide notice and an opportunity for a hearing before taking certain adverse actions.
Trump criticized the Supreme Court’s action, writing on social media, “This is a bad and dangerous day for America!”
The president lamented that under the ruling illegal immigrants who he said have committed crimes “are not allowed to be forced out without going through a long, protracted, and expensive Legal Process” that could take years. The ruling, Trump added, also will encourage other criminals to enter the country illegally.
