WASHINGTON, April 20 — A US Supreme Court judge criticised a dramatic night-time intervention by the court yesterday to block President Donald Trump’s use of an obscure law to deport Venezuelan migrants without due process.
Conservative Justice Samuel Alito called the emergency ruling “rushed” and “legally questionable” in statement published hours after he dissented from the order.
The country’s highest judicial body passed the order early yesterday to stop what rights groups warned were imminent deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members.
The court decision temporarily prevents the government from continuing to expel migrants under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA) — last used to round up Japanese-American citizens during World War II.
Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, who were the only justices dissenting yesterday, are two of the most conservative members on the nine-member panel.
Alito wrote in an opinion that the court had not waited for a government response to the case, which was made by rights lawyers on behalf of the migrants.
The court had also issued the order without “concrete support” for the applicants’ claim that deportations could take place as soon as last night, he said.
“In sum, literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief… without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support for its order,” Alito wrote.
“We had no good reason to think that, under the circumstances, issuing an order at midnight was necessary or appropriate.”
Trump used the AEA last month to send hundreds of largely Venezuelan migrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador over allegations that the deportees were members of violent gangs.
Protestors hold signs as they march towards the White House during a, Free Kilmar Abrego and Anti-Trump, rally in Washington, DC, April 19, 2025. Abrego Garcia was detained in Maryland last month and expelled to El Salvador along with 238 Venezuelans and 22 fellow Salvadorans who were deported shortly after President Donald Trump invoked a rarely-used wartime authority. — AFP pic
In the most publicised case, Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported last month to the infamous El Salvador mega-prison without charge.
The Trump administration said that Abrego Garcia had been included in a bigger batch of deportees due to an “administrative error” and a court ruled that the government must facilitate his return.
However, Trump has since doubled down, insisting that Abrego Garcia is in fact a gang member, including posting an apparently doctored photo on social media Friday that a gang symbol tattooed on his knuckles.
Inmates at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Centre are packed in windowless cells, sleep on metal beds with no mattresses, and are forbidden visitors. — AFP
