On Thursday evening, lawyers helping Venezuelan immigrants most at risk of being removed under an 18th-century wartime powers act received an ominous alert: U.S. immigration officials were handing out notices at a detention facility in Texas, informing migrants that they were considered enemies under the law and would be removed from the country.
“I am a law enforcement officer authorized to apprehend, restrain and remove alien enemies,” read the notice, a copy of which was filed in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union. “Accordingly, under the Alien Enemies Act, you have been determined to be an alien enemy subject to apprehension, restraint and removal from the United States.”
The notice said the migrant could make a phone call but did not specify to whom. The single-page notice, also did not mention any way to appeal the order.
The Supreme Court ruled this month that migrants must receive advance notice that they are subject to removal under the rarely invoked wartime powers law — and that they must have an opportunity to challenge their removal in court.
News of the notices being handed out at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, warning of impending deportations prompted a flurry of legal actions by the A.C.L.U. on Friday in several courts. Early Saturday, the Supreme Court stepped in with unusual speed, ruling that no flights could depart.
“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 court said. It is unclear when the justices will make a ruling on whether deportation flights can continue.
The lack of clear information from the government about the latest deportation operation raised new questions about whether the Trump administration was trying to sidestep the Supreme Court’s previous decision, which called for any migrant removed under the wartime law to have a chance to challenge their removal.
The move comes a month after the Trump administration executed a similar operation and deported more than 200 migrants to a prison in El Salvador, claiming that many of them were “alien enemies” and members of a Venezuelan gang. A New York Times investigation found that very few of them had clear, documented links to the group.
Their removal kicked off an enormous legal fight in which a federal judge threatened a contempt investigation into whether the Trump administration had violated his order directing officials to stop the planes of Venezuelan migrants.
Lawyers for the migrants said the administration appeared to be mobilizing an effort to swiftly deport another group under the wartime powers act. In recent days, they said, migrants in detention centers across the country were moved to the facility in Anson — a region that is not currently subject to a court order barring the use of the law in deportations. Once there, the migrants began receiving notices of removal.
The Trump administration said the deportations were not only appropriate but essential to protecting the public.
“We are confident in the lawfulness of the administration’s actions and in ultimately prevailing against an onslaught of meritless litigation brought by radical activists who care more about the rights of terrorist aliens than those of the American people,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement on Saturday.
Later that day, the administration asked the Supreme Court to “dissolve” its temporary block on deporting the Venezuelans and to allow lower courts to weigh in on the matter before intervening further.
“We’ve already seen the administration try to exploit every iota of wiggle room that the Supreme Court’s April 7 ruling created,” said Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University. “It’s hard to imagine it won’t try again with the ruling from overnight.”
Immigrant rights advocates said they had been forced to move quickly because the Trump administration had repeatedly shown it was not affording migrants due process.
“If the government believes that its peacetime use of this wartime law is lawful, and that it hasn’t mistakenly tagged anyone as a gang member, then it should be fine with a court reviewing its actions,” said Lee Gelernt, the lead A.C.L.U. lawyer arguing for the migrants in the case. “When the stakes are this high, the last thing our government — and our Justice Department in particular — should be doing is seeking to evade judicial review.”
The newest legal fight kicked off earlier in the week, when the A.C.L.U. learned some Venezuelans might be deported from the Bluebonnet facility.
The group, which has sought to halt deportations under the Alien Enemies Act in cases across the country, raced to file a lawsuit on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Abilene, Texas, on behalf of two Venezuelans at the detention center.
Lawyers for the Justice Department responded by telling Judge James Wesley Hendrix — “unequivocally,” he later wrote — that the administration had no plans to deport the men.
Judge Hendrix declined to issue an order on Thursday shielding them from being removed. He also said he was not yet prepared to grant the A.C.L.U.’s request to extend protections to all the other Venezuelan migrants being held in Anson.
That evening, the A.C.L.U. received multiple calls that the notices were being handed out to immigrants at the facility, where migrants had been sent from across the country in recent days, according to Mr. Gelernt.
Last week, a judge in the Southern District of Texas had issued an order blocking the government from using the wartime power to deport people. But the Bluebonnet facility lies under the authority of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, where no such order is in effect.
The A.C.L.U. lawyers said they had emailed the government on Thursday at 6:23 p.m. Central asking whether the government had distributed notices to Venezuelans at the facility, according to a court filing from the group.
Thirteen minutes later, they said, government lawyers told them they would circle back with more information.
Instead, when Justice Department lawyers replied more than an hour later, they said only that the two migrants the A.C.L.U. was representing in court in Texas had not been given notices.
Frustrated, the A.C.L.U., responded that it was inquiring about the status of all migrants in the facility.
More than two hours later, at 8:41 p.m., the government wrote, “We are not in a position at this time to share information about unknown detainees who are not currently parties to the pending litigation.”
Inside the Bluebonnet Detention Facility, migrants were scrambling, calling their family members and warning them that it appeared the government was planning to deport them immediately.
One man called his wife to say Venezuelans in the facility were being given notices accusing them of being part of the Tren de Aragua gang, according to a document the A.C.L.U filed in court. He sent her a video posted on TikTok in which men in red jumpsuits crowded around a cellphone, saying they had been given a document ordering their swift removal from the United States because they were “alien enemies” and represented a terrorist threat.
One of the men, identifying himself with the last name Prieto, said there had been no order for his deportation and that his immigration documents were in order. “I have American children,” he said. “They brought me here, and I’m innocent. They arrested me without any warrant.”
He added, “For nothing, for nothing they brought me here.”
One migrant called Karene Brown, his immigration lawyer in New York, and told her that on Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials gave him a sheet in English, which he could not read, Ms. Brown said in a court declaration.
Her client was informed by I.C.E. “that these papers were coming from the president and that he will be deported even if he did not sign it,” she wrote in the declaration.
By Friday, the pace of the legal fight picked up.
The A.C.L.U. filed a second emergency motion to Judge Hendrix, saying the deportations were “imminent and will happen tonight or tomorrow.”
The lawyers were so concerned time was running short that they took the extraordinary step of giving the judge a 1:30 p.m. deadline to respond. After that, they went over his head to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.
The Fifth Circuit was not the only court they tried.
By Friday afternoon, the A.C.L.U. had also asked for help from the Supreme Court and from Judge James E. Boasberg in Federal District Court in Washington, who had issued the first order pausing deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.
Judge Boasberg set an emergency hearing for 6:15 p.m., asking the lawyer representing the Justice Department, Drew C. Ensign, what the administration’s plans were for the Venezuelan migrants at Bluebonnet.
Mr. Ensign said there would be no flights on Friday. Saturday, however, was another matter. That was cold comfort for Mr. Gelernt, the A.C.L.U. lawyer.
“That doesn’t give us much confidence that there won’t be planes,” he told the judge.
Mr. Gelernt expressed concern that if the Venezuelans at Bluebonnet were deported to El Salvador, there would be little recourse to get them back. He noted the administration’s refusal to seek the return of a Salvadoran immigrant, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported to the country last month.
Judge Boasberg said he was troubled by the situation there was little he could do, given that the Supreme Court had told him he could not issue orders from Washington affecting immigrants in Texas.
“I find it very concerning,” he told Mr. Gelernt. “But at this point, I just don’t think I have the ability to grant relief to the plaintiffs.”
Some six hours later, the Supreme Court justices stepped in and did so themselves.
Abbie VanSickle contributed reporting from Washington, and Isayen Herrera from Caracas, Venezuela.
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.
Annie Correal reports from the U.S. and Latin America for The Times.
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