Justice Samuel Alito has slammed the Supreme Court for acting “literally in the middle of the night” as he criticized his colleagues for temporarily blocking the deportation of a group of Venezuelans held in a Texas prison.
In an early Saturday morning brief order, the justices told the White House it could not remove the Venezuelans from the Bluebonnet Detention Center under the Alien Enemies Act “until further order of this court.”
Justices Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from the majority opinion.
The Trump administration has accused the group of being gang members and wants to deport them under the 18th-century wartime law.
In the dissent, Alito wrote that there was “dubious factual support” for granting the emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union.
A detailed explanation of the order was not given by the court’s majority.
It has previously said that the deportations could only go ahead after those being removed had “a reasonable time” to contest it.
“Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law,” Alito said in the dissent.
Alito continued that the decision by the court was “unprecedented” and had been “hastily and prematurely granted.”
He insisted that it was not clear that the court yet had jurisdiction with the case still playing out in lower courts.
“The only papers before this Court were those submitted by the applicants. The Court had not ordered or received a response by the Government regarding either the applicants’ factual allegations or any of the legal issues presented by the application. And the Court did not have the benefit of a Government response filed in any of the lower courts either,” Alito said.
The high court’s ruling came after lawyers for the migrants asked the Supreme Court on Friday to block what they believe to be an imminent new wave of deportations.
The Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the Trump administration has the authority to deport migrants under the Aliens Enemies Act.
However, it also ordered that the government provide detainees an opportunity to contest their removals in court districts nearest to the detention centers where they are being held.
Dozens of the men have been told that they are going to be removed under the Alien Enemies Act imminently, lawyers with the ACLU wrote in a Friday court filing.
