The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court late Monday to lift its freeze on deportations of nearly 200 Venezuelan migrants, citing a dangerous escalation at a Texas detention center involving alleged members of a violent gang.
In an emergency filing, the Justice Department’s Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the high court to allow the government to resume deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century wartime statute the administration is using to expedite removals of foreign nationals accused of threatening national security.
Sauer, the third highest-ranking member of the Trump Justice Department, said the detained migrants, allegedly affiliated with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, designated by U.S. officials as a foreign terrorist organization, have grown increasingly dangerous in custody.
“Some detainees have proven to be especially dangerous to maintain in prolonged detention,” Sauer wrote in the filing. “This includes a recent incident in which 23 migrants barricaded themselves in a housing unit and threatened to take hostages and harm ICE officers.”
The episode occurred at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, where a Department of Homeland Security field officer said detainees refused to comply with orders and caused a major security disruption that lasted several hours, according to the DOJ, which cited a sworn declaration from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
The sworn declaration from ICE official Joshua Johnson detailed how the detainees constructed barricades, resisted officers, and were ultimately relocated to the Prairieland Detention Center due to the security threat they posed. “The organized and coordinated nature of the detainee misconduct threatened the security, safety, and order of the Bluebonnet facility,” Johnson said.
Sauer argued that the government’s ability to detain the migrants safely is eroding and said deportations under traditional Title 8 immigration law should be allowed to proceed immediately.
“Transferring such prisoners to other facilities creates ongoing risks of prison recruitment and expansion of Tren de Aragua gang activities within the United States,” he wrote. “The difficulty of detaining the putative class members has now made it imperative for the government to pursue removal under authorities other than the AEA.”
The Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction last month, halting deportations under the AEA until legal challenges could play out. The administration has argued the high court’s order should at the very least be narrowed to apply only to removals under the AEA and not to other statutory deportation tools.
Sauer said the migrants have received “adequate notice” of the government’s intent to deport them and that none have filed habeas corpus petitions in federal court during the three-week injunction period.
“The three weeks afforded here are more than adequate,” 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.”
The government’s filing comes amid sharp divisions in lower courts over whether migrant detainees can jointly challenge their removals under the AEA.
In recent weeks, two federal judges in Texas, both appointed by President Donald Trump, reached opposite conclusions on class certification. U.S. District Judge James Hendrix in the Northern District denied class status, citing the highly individualized nature of the claims, including differences in gang ties and asylum status. But Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. in the Southern District granted class certification in a separate case, calling it a more efficient path given the common legal questions. The split has heightened legal uncertainty and all but guaranteed the issue will head to the 5th Circuit.
The Trump administration began invoking the AEA earlier this year to expedite deportations of certain foreign nationals, especially those linked to gangs or terrorist groups. The law, dating to 1798, allows the executive branch to remove nationals from enemy nations during times of conflict quickly.
Civil liberties groups and immigration advocates have fiercely challenged the policy, arguing it lacks due process and opens the door to mass deportations without individualized assessments.
Lower courts have so far issued mixed rulings on the policy’s legality. Federal judges in multiple states have temporarily blocked its use, including Rodriguez, while the Supreme Court has allowed the administration to proceed in limited fashion — so long as detainees are given “adequate” notice and a chance to challenge their removal, a vague legal requirement that has been a point of contention by the government in recent hearings.
TRUMP JUDGES SPLIT OVER GROUPING DEPORTATION CASES TOGETHER OR HANDLING INDIVIDUALLY
Attorneys for the detainees have not yet filed a response, and the Supreme Court has not indicated when it will take action in response to the government’s request.
The Washington Examiner contacted an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, the civil rights group serving as counsel for the migrants.
