ACLU urges US supreme court to block ‘imminent’ deportations of Venezuelans

The American Civil Liberties Union asked the US supreme court to block what the group called the imminent deportation of a new group of Venezuelan men detained in Texas without the judicial review previously ordered by the court.

In an emergency Friday court filing, ACLU lawyers said dozens of Venezuelan men held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Bluebonnet detention center in Texas were given notices indicating they were classified as members of the Tren de Aragua gang and would be deported under the Alien Enemies Act, and were told “that the removals are imminent and will happen tonight or tomorrow”.

The ACLU has already sued to block deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of two Venezuelans held in the Texas detention center and is asking a judge to issue an order barring removals of any immigrants in the region under the law.

In the new emergency filing, the ACLU warned immigration authorities were accusing other Venezuelan men held there of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang that would make them subject to deportation.

The supreme court has allowed deportations under the 1798 law, but ruled unanimously they could proceed only if those about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and were given “a reasonable time” to contest their pending removals.

District judge James Wesley Hendrix this week declined to bar the administration from removing the two men identified in the ACLU lawsuit because immigration officials filed sworn declarations that they would not be immediately deported.

But the ACLU’s Friday filing includes sworn declarations from three separate immigration lawyers who said their clients in Bluebonnet were given paperwork indicating they were members of Tren de Aragua and could be deported by Saturday. In one case, immigration lawyer Karene Brown said her client, identified by initials and who only spoke Spanish, was told to sign papers in English.

“Ice informed FGM that these papers were coming from the president, and that he will be deported even if he did not sign it,” Brown wrote.

The ACLU asked Hendrix to issue a temporary order halting any such deportations. Later on Friday, with no response from Hendrix, the ACLU asked district judge James Boasberg in Washington to issue a similar emergency order, saying they had information that detainees were being loaded on buses.

In their court filing, lawyers say clients received a document Friday from immigration officials, titled “Notice and Warrant of Apprehension and Removal under the Alien Enemies Act”.

It reads: “You have been determined to be … a member of Tren de Aragua.”

“You have been determined to be an alien enemy subject to apprehension, restraint and removal from the United States … This is not a removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act,” the notice reads.

Writing on X, Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat, denounced the reported plan to deport more Venezuelans under the 1798 law as a violation of the supreme court’s ruling “that Trump had to give people adequate notice before deporting them”.

“We cannot stand by,” Jayapal wrote, as the Trump administration “continues to disappear people”.