Supreme Court maintains block on some Trump deportations of migrants
Supreme Court maintains block on some Trump deportations of migrants
The justices did not address the broader question about whether Trump officials can legally invoke the Alien Enemies Act to target alleged gang members.
Updated
May 16, 2025 at 7:06 p.m. EDTtoday at 7:06 p.m. EDT
7 min669
The Supreme Court on Friday kept a block on the Trump administration’s use of a rarely invoked wartime power to deport migrants in Northern Texas and said administration officials had not given those targeted for removal last month sufficient time to challenge their deportations.
The justices called the detainees’ interests “particularly weighty” because of the risk of removal to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador where the migrants could face indefinite detention.
President Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target a Venezuelan gang isone of the most controversial parts of his mass deportation efforts, which are at the center of increasingly tense standoffs between his administration and the courts.
Trump responded angrily to the Friday order in a post on Truth Social, writing “THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!”
The justices had told the administration in early April that it must give targeted detainees sufficient notice “within a reasonable time and in such a manner” that they can challenge their removal in the jurisdictions where they are being held. The high court intervened again a week later, issuing an extraordinary middle-of-the-night order to temporarily halt deportations of a group of migrants in Northern Texas. Lawyers for those migrants said they had been loaded onto buses and were at risk of imminent removal to El Salvador.
Follow Trump’s second termFollow
In their order Friday, the justices seemed to send the message that they meant what they said the first time. Using stronger language, they emphasized the importance of courts ensuring a fair or due process before deportation and twicealluded to the Trump administration’s handling of Kilmar Abrego García, the Maryland man wrongly deported and now imprisoned in El Salvador despite a 2019 court order barring such action.
“A detainee must have sufficient time and information to reasonably be able to contact counsel, file a petition, and pursue appropriate relief,” according to the order from a majority of justices.
The roughly 24 hours notice provided to the detainees in Northern Texas “devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster,” the order states.
Conservative Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas dissented, accusing their colleagues of departing from the court’s usual practice.
The Supreme Court made clear it was not addressing the broader question aboutwhether Trump officials can legally invoke the wartime statute to target alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Instead, they sent the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit for further proceedings.
“We recognize the significance of the Government’s national security interests as well as the necessity that such interests be pursued in a manner consistent with the Constitution,” according to the unsigned order presumably joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and the court’s three liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
In a concurring statement, Kavanaugh said the Supreme Court’s injunction “simply ensures that the Judiciary can decide whether these Venezuelan detainees may be lawfully removed under the Alien Enemies Act before they are in fact removed.”
Kavanaugh said he would have preferred to have the Supreme Court take up the underlying legal questions and called for a “prompt and final resolution” of the matter.
Tracking legal challenges to Trump administration
Click here to see the biggest actions by the Trump administration being challenged in court.
End of carousel
Lower courts have largely rejected the administration’s rationale for fast-track deportations. Judges in Colorado, New York and Texas have all concluded that it was unlawful for Trump to invoke the Alien Enemies Act and rejected the administration’s declarations that the United States is being invaded by the Venezuelan gang to justify its use of the centuries-old act to try to deport migrants without a hearing. The judges have barred or temporarily paused such deportations in their districts.
