President Donald Trump’s administration has requested the Supreme Court’s permission to deport nearly 200 Venezuelan migrants detained in Texas, asking the court to lift the injunction it issued last month that temporarily blocked the deportation of the migrants under the Alien Enemies Act.
In a filing on Monday, the Trump administration said that the 176 alleged members of Tren de Aragua “have proven to be especially dangerous to maintain in prolonged detention.”
According to a sworn declaration, an official for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that a group of 23 migrants “threatened to take hostages and injure facility contract staff and ICE officers.”
“The detainees failed to comply with orders to dismantle the barricades and were barricaded in the housing unit for several hours,” said Joshua Johnson, the ICE official.
In the declaration, Johnson said the group of migrants were moved from Bluebonnet Detention Facility to Prairieland Detention Center last week.
“Relocating the detainees to Prairieland was necessary because the organized and coordinated nature of the detainee misconduct threatened the security, safety, and order of the Bluebonnet facility and posed a risk to other detainees, staff, contractors, and any visitors within the facility,” Johnson said.
In the filing on Monday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said that SCOTUS should not block the removal of detainees “who have been endangering others while in detention.”
“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 said in the filing.
The solicitor general also said that the migrants have received “adequate notice” and the opportunity to pursue habeas petitions.
“The three weeks afforded here are more than adequate to pursue habeas,” Sauer wrote. “Yet as far as the government is aware, no members of the putative class who have received notice of removal pursuant to the AEA have filed habeas petitions in the Northern District of Texas while the administrative injunction has remained in place.”
Sauer said the court should modify its recent temporary block to “clarify” that the order only bars removal of the class members under the AEA.
“The vast majority of putative class members,” according to Sauer, are eligible for “prompt” removal under Title 8 authorities.
“The difficulty of detaining the putative class members discussed above has now made it imperative for the government to pursue removal under authorities other than the AEA while the Court’s administrative injunction remains in place,” Sauer’s court filing said.
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