NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. judges in Texas and New York dealt blows on Wednesday to President Donald Trump’s effort to revive deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members under a wartime law after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a nationwide ban on such removals.
Wednesday’s actions marked early victories for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is seeking to prevent additional deportations of alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. The Republican administration last month deported 238 Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador.
In a 5-4 decision on Monday powered by its conservative justices, the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a temporary order imposed by Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg that prevented such deportations nationwide.
The Supreme Court nonetheless said the U.S. government must give sufficient notice to immigrant detainees to allow them to contest their deportations. It did not say how the 238 in El Salvador could seek judicial review of their removals.
Wednesday’s U.S. District Court rulings in Texas and New York apply only to migrants still in the United States.
Lawyers and relatives of the migrants held in El Salvador say they are not gang members and had no opportunity to contest the U.S. government assertion they were. The Trump administration says it vetted migrants to ensure they belonged to Tren de Aragua, which it labels a terrorist organization.
Asked on Wednesday why the Trump administration will not release details on cases of alleged gang members sent to El Salvador, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended the government’s assessment.
“We’re confident that people that are there should be there, and they should stay there for the rest of their lives,” Noem said at an event in Washington for crime victims.
After the Supreme Court’s ruling, the ACLU swiftly asked federal courts in Brownsville, Texas, and Manhattan to bar Alien Enemies Act deportations. Trump invoked the law in a March 14 proclamation to deport alleged gang members without final deportation orders.
In Texas, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez granted the ACLU’s request, blocking any such deportations of migrants held at the El Valle Detention Center in Raymondville, Texas, through April 23.
Rodriguez, appointed by Trump during his first term as president, cited the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the government says it deported to El Salvador in error but cannot bring back.
“If the United States erroneously removed an individual to another country based on the Proclamation, a substantial likelihood exists that the individual could not be returned,” the judge wrote.
At a court hearing in Manhattan, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said he would order that any Venezuelan migrant in his southern New York district must receive notice and a hearing before being deported under the Alien Enemies Act.
The judge, appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, said his order would remain in effect until April 22.
ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt told reporters after the hearing the group would “go district by district” to seek orders blocking Alien Enemies Act deportations.
It was not immediately clear how many people were protected from potential deportation due to the courts’ actions. As of March 18, there were 258 alleged gang members in immigration proceedings, including 86 who were in custody, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Drew Ensign, a lawyer for the government, said in court in Manhattan there were fewer than 10 people subject to deportation under the Alien Enemies Act in Judge Hellerstein’s district and “many others” in Judge Rodriguez’s southern Texas district.
The ACLU argues the Alien Enemies Act, best known for its use to intern Japanese, Italian and German immigrants during World War Two, is not applicable because Tren de Aragua’s presence in the U.S. does not constitute an invasion by a hostile nation.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Additional reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware and Ted Hesson in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Howard Goller)
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