Trump grows impatient with Supreme Court delay on deportations 

WASHINGTON (CN) — Losing patience with the justices’ weekslong delay, President Donald Trump pressed the Supreme Court on Monday to lift a pause on deportations.

“It has now been more than three weeks since this court entered an order precluding the removal of all members of the putative class,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote, referring to the high court’s rare middle-of-the-night ruling on April 19.

The justices granted an emergency appeal from Venezuelan migrants facing imminent deportation, presumably to El Salvador’s notorious prison. The unusual ruling came amid concerns that deportations to El Salvador’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, might be permanent. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.

Three weeks later, the administration said that the time ought to be up.

“That three-week time frame constitutes more than adequate opportunity to pursue judicial relief under any standard,” Sauer said. “Thus, no putative class member now has any plausible claim to denial of notice or opportunity to be heard.”

Trump’s insistence on skirting the traditional deportation paths has hit roadblocks in the courts.

Immigrant advocates said migrants had not been given adequate time to appeal their removal under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in violation of the Supreme Court’s previous order.

Under the Alien Enemies Act, the president can detain and deport natives and citizens of an enemy nation. It has been used only three times in the nation’s history: during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II. Migrants can only appeal their detention through a habeas action, used to challenge detention.

In March, the Trump administration utilized the wartime authority to deport over a hundred migrants they say are affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang, which U.S. officials describe as a de facto arm of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s regime.

The wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen living in Maryland with his U.S. citizen wife and their son, became a flashpoint in the administration’s deportation fight. His case, according to the ACLU, demonstrates why the justices need to prevent any further removals for now.

The civil rights group, which represents the migrants, said the government loaded detainees on buses, presumably headed to the airport, on April 18. The buses were only turned around after the migrants appealed to the high court.

The government didn’t deny that dozens of migrants were scheduled to be removed to El Salvador. The administration also maintains it cannot retrieve deportees from the country.

According to the Trump administration, the justices’ order has prohibited the removal of 176 migrants. The Justice Department said continuing to hold the men has become dangerous, detailing a supposed incident where migrants barricaded themselves in a housing unit and threatened to take hostages.

“One of the key reasons the government has decided to use the more expeditious procedures of the AEA to remove the putative class members in the first place is because of the dangers posed by TdA members while in detention,” Sauer wrote. “The recent episode at Bluebonnet confirms that those procedures are necessary and that applicants’ request for equitable relief is unwarranted.”

The government claimed that transferring prisoners to other facilities created an ongoing risk of prison recruitments.

“That is an alarming prospect, given that TdA has ‘conducted kidnappings, extorted businesses, bribed public officials, authorized its members to attack and kill U.S. law enforcement, and assassinated a Venezuelan opposition figure’ — prompting the Secretary of State to deem TdA a threat to national security,” Sauer wrote.

While their emergency appeal was pending at the Supreme Court, a lower court rejected a class certification motion, which would have allowed advocates to litigate cases simultaneously. Instead, migrants will have to file separate habeas actions.

“Three weeks is more than ‘reasonable time’ for putative class members to file habeas petitions,” Sauer wrote.

It’s still unclear, however, how much time Trump plans to give migrants to file an appeal once receiving a removal notice. The Justice Department dismissed the migrants’ claim that they needed a 30-day notice, mirroring the government’s World War II-era policy.

“Applicants offer no basis for treating the government’s AEA notice policy from the 1940s as the constitutional floor for aliens designated in 2025 as members of a foreign terrorist organization,” Sauer wrote. “On the contrary, ‘due process is flexible and calls for such procedural protections as the particular situation demands.’”

While the administration justified its use of the Alien Enemies Act by citing the reported violence at the Bluebonnet facility. Trump says the migrants can still be deported under Title 8 — the typical path for removal proceedings.

Trump asked the court to deny the migrants’ request for a more permanent pause in full, but he suggested that the justices could also just clarify that migrants can be deported under other authorities.

Administration officials have openly questioned whether migrants were entitled to due process rights. Last week, White House advisor Stephen Miller suggested the administration was considering suspending the writ of habeas corpus — an authority given to Congress, not the executive. Miller said the administration was waiting to see “whether the courts do the right thing or not.”

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