The U.S. Supreme Court issued a temporary order on Saturday, halting the deportations of Venezuelans detained in northern Texas under a rarely invoked 18th-century wartime statute. The court instructed the Trump administration to suspend the removal of individuals held at the Bluebonnet Detention Center “until further order from this court.” Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the ruling.
The ruling came after an emergency appeal filed overnight by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which argued that immigration officials were using the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) of 1798 to resume deportations. In April, the Supreme Court had ruled that deportations could only proceed if detainees were given a fair opportunity to present their case in court and sufficient time to contest removal orders.
“These men faced the grave risk of spending the rest of their lives in brutal foreign prisons without ever having their day in court,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt in a statement to CBS News. “We are relieved the Supreme Court stepped in to prevent their sudden deportation, unlike what happened to others last month.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller criticized the court’s decision on X, branding the detainees as “foreign terrorists.” Miller asserted, “They were apprehended during meticulously planned raids executed by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.” Leavitt added, “We remain confident we will ultimately prevail against these baseless lawsuits filed by radical activists who prioritize the rights of these terrorist aliens over the safety of the American people.”
Earlier on Friday, two federal judges declined to intervene as legal teams for the detainees scrambled to halt deportations. The 5th U.S. Court of Appeals also denied protections early Saturday. Despite the Supreme Court’s temporary stay, the administration signaled plans to return to court quickly to overturn the order.
The ACLU has already filed a lawsuit to block the deportations of two Venezuelans at the Bluebonnet facility, while seeking a broader injunction to stop the removal of migrants under the AEA. In an emergency motion submitted Friday, the ACLU detailed reports from lawyers and families of detainees in Ansen, Texas, who claimed immigration officials accused the men of ties to Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang central to former President Trump’s immigration crackdown. The ACLU stated that several detainees received removal notices under the wartime statute.
The organization referenced last month’s deportations of migrants who were sent to El Salvador’s notorious Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) mega-prison, appealing to U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix for swift action. “Given the unrelenting cruelty of the Salvadoran prison where other Venezuelan men were sent under the Alien Enemies Act, the irreversible harm to these individuals is undeniable,” the ACLU argued in its filing.
In March, President Trump activated the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to authorize the detention and deportation of Venezuelan migrants allegedly connected to the Tren de Aragua gang, citing the move as essential for addressing potential security threats from the group’s reported activities in the U.S. The AEA, an infrequently utilized law, has been enacted only three times in American history, most prominently during World War II when Japanese-American civilians were unjustly detained in internment camps. The Trump administration has defended its use of the AEA, claiming it grants sweeping authority to accelerate the removal of individuals identified as gang affiliates, regardless of their immigration status.
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