The Supreme Court has blocked the president’s plan to deport Texas migrants to El Salvador—for now.
In a Saturday emergency order, the high court thwarted the Trump administration’s attempts to use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to conduct mass deportation flights.
“The Government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court,” the justices wrote. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.
The ruling comes after two Trump-appointed judges gave the president the green light on Friday by refusing to pause any deportation exercises under the obscure 1798 law, which was last used widely during World War II to expel nationals of enemy states.
Trump first invoked the Alien Enemies Act in a March 15 executive order designating members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang as “foreign terrorists.”
The Court’s order applies to any migrant detained in the Northern District of Texas who is being removed under the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act. However, the SCOTUS ruling does not apply elsewhere.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) requested that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, block the deportations. However, Boasberg ruled Friday that he had no jurisdiction over the matter.
“I am sympathetic to everything you’re saying, I just don’t think I have the power to do anything,” said Boasberg during the hearing.
SCOTUS’s order puts a stay on those deportations until it can rule on the ACLU’s appeal.
