US Supreme Court rules Trump administration can continue deportations under Alien Enemies Act

HOUSTON, United States

The US Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Trump administration can continue to deport illegal immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), according to media reports.

The nation's highest court ruled 5-4 to overturn an order last week by a Washington, DC District Court judge who placed a temporary restraining order on the federal government from using the AEA to deport hundreds of alleged members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang to El Salvador without any due process. The March 15 mass deportations drew ire from critics because the detainees were not given a court hearing to argue their innocence before being deported.

The Supreme Court on Monday threw out that previous ruling, which clears the path for the Trump administration to continue the removal of alleged immigrant gang members from the United States, as long as the detainees are given due process to make the government prove the legality of their detention before being expelled from the country.

"AEA detainees must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act. The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs," the Supreme Court wrote in its ruling.

In a dissent to the ruling, liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson spoke to the historic nature of Monday's decision.

"I lament that the Court appears to have embarked on a new era of procedural variability and that it has done so in such a casual, inequitable and, in my view, inappropriate manner," Jackson wrote.

The Supreme Court decision leapfrogs the lower courts' procedures in this fast-moving case, which has triggered concerns from critics about Trump's aggressive and unprecedented use of presidential power in invoking the rarely-used Alien Enemies Act, which has only been used in the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.

Attorneys for the Venezuelan immigrants who filed suit to fight the deportations argued that the improper use of the AEA could allow officials to target disfavored immigrant groups without any checks and balances.

It would "allow the government to immediately begin whisking away anyone else it unilaterally declares to be a member of a criminal gang to a brutal foreign prison," they said.