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The US Supreme Court has temporarily banned Donald Trump from using a rarely used law dating from the 18th century to expel a group of Venezuela migrants
The country’s highest court said in the early hours of Saturday that the government was “directed not to remove any members of the detainee class of those arrested from the United States until a further order of this court.”
The Trump administration has tried to remove the alleged members of a Venezuela gang using the act of alien enemies of 1798, a law last called during World War II to practice non-American Italian, German and Japanese citizens.
Two of the nine judges of the Court, Conservatives Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, were not opposed by the majority ruling.
Lawyers for migrants, who are being held in a prison in Texas, expressed relief by decision.
“These men were in immediate danger of spending their lives in a terrible foreign prison without ever having a chance to go to trial,” said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the US Union of Civil Freedoms, who is a major adviser in the case.
Some suspected members of the Tren De Aragua gang were interned in a prison in El Salvador last month, despite a court order that blocked their deportations.
Lower Court Judge James Boasberg had issued a temporary restriction order blocking administration efforts to expel suspected gang members. The order pushed President Donald Trump to demand his blame.
The suspected gang members were flew in El Salvador despite Boasberg’s decision that the planes where they were in had to return.
“We are facilitated that the Supreme Court has not allowed the administration to remove them, the way others were just last month,” Gelernt said.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court removed the expulsion in a 5-4 vote that was seen as a White House win.
However, this judgment did not rule in Trump’s attempt to use long legislation. On the contrary, it was a close order saying that Venezuela men who sought to challenge Trump had filed their lawsuit on the wrong jurisdiction.
