The U.S. Supreme Court granted a temporary motion on Friday to pause deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 based on the lack of due process given to migrants.
The 7-2 ruling was issued unsigned, but Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas publicly dissented from the majority.
Alito dissented on the basis that the court had ‘no authority to issue any relief’ so early in the litigation process.
The lawsuit was filed by a group of Venezuelans from North Texas who were accused by the government of being gang members and thereby eligible for deportation without due process.
The court rejected a motion from the Trump administration to allow them to continue the deportation proceedings, and ruled that the government had not given the migrants the due process to challenge the deportations.
The ruling cited the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, where the administration said they had no power to return the man, despite admitting that his deportation was due to a clerical error.
The Supreme Court said that “the detainees’ interests at stake are accordingly particularly weighty,” given that the Trump administration had been “unable to provide for the return of an individual deported in error to a prison in El Salvador.”
Alito dissented on the basis that the court had “no authority to issue any relief” so early in the litigation process.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union argue that the detained migrants were not notified by the government in a language that they understand and were not notified of their rights, nor given enough time to exercise their rights.
The Supreme Court had unanimously ruled in April that migrants needed to be allowed due process to challenge deportation proceedings.
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Defenders of the use of the 1798 law say that the scale of the millions of deportations needed to alleviate the immigration crisis is so great that due process cannot be granted to each migrant to be deported. Critics of the administration say due process is necessary to protect against mistaken deportations, as well as to allow suspects to challenge the designation and prove their innocence.
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