The U.S. Supreme Court approves migrant deportations under a 1789 law.

WashingtonThe U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to continue using the 1789 Enemies of Aliens Act to deport Venezuelan migrants accused of belonging to criminal gangs. The high court has lifted the injunction imposed by a federal judge in Washington, although it avoids elaborating on the legality of the ruling. deportation of more than 200 Venezuelans in El Salvador's mega-prison last March. These individuals were not entitled to due process—as the appeals court judge had asserted—while now the Supreme Court has established that individuals subject to the law must have the right to "judicial review" to determine whether they "are indeed alien enemies."

The ruling, by five votes in favor (the five conservative justices) and four against (the three liberal justices and one conservative justice), establishes that anyone prosecuted under the Alien Enemies Act must have a "reasonable period" to effectively challenge its application before it is implemented. "Although judicial review under the AEA [Alien Enemies Act] is limited, we have established that an individual subject to detention and removal under this law is entitled to judicial review regarding questions of interpretation and constitutionality of the law, as well as to determine whether they are indeed an enemy.", writes the high court.

Despite insistence on the right to challenge deportation under the 1789 law, the reality is that migrants are not assigned a court-appointed attorney and are left to bear the costs of counsel. According to the American Immigration Council,, Since deportation is classified as a civil, not criminal, sanction, migrants facing expulsion lack the constitutional protections afforded by the Sixth Amendment. This means that people caught in the immigration system, if they cannot afford a lawyer or lack access to NGOs, must defend themselves before the judges who want to deport them. It is the same thing that happens with the cases of unaccompanied migrant minors..

The Supreme Court ruled on the blockade after the Court of Appeals upheld the decision of Washington federal judge James Boasberg. In response, the government filed an emergency appeal to bring the case to the highest court. In the ruling, the judges ruled that the legal remedies in this case should be processed in Texas and not in the Washington court, which ruled last March.

In his blockade, Boasberg considered that the application of the law could cause "irreversible" damage because people "will be deported, and many or the vast majority will end up in prisons in other countries or will be sent back to Venezuela," where, according to the judge, they face "persecution." The program 60 Minutes has managed to uncover the criminal records of the Venezuelans who were sent to the Salvadoran mega-prison CECOT (Center for the Protection of the Nation) under the accusation of being alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Apparently, 75% of them have no criminal record.

In their dissenting opinion, the three progressive justices (Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson), along with conservative Amy Coney Barrett, consider that "the Court's legal conclusion is questionable," among other reasons, because they do not mention "the grave harm" of the government in undermining the judicial process throughout this litigation. For the justices, the lifting of the precautionary blockade means "rewarding the government's efforts to weaken the rule of law."

Trump openly called for a process ofimpeachment against Boasberg for obstructing his campaign of mass deportations with the injunction, which Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts ruled against.

Suspicions about the deportation

Meanwhile, Boasberg is trying to determine whether the government violated its embargo when it deported the Venezuelans to the mega-prison. At the last hearing, the Trump administration invoked the privilege of the right to state secrets for not disclosing the time the flight took off, which is crucial to determining whether the injunction was violated. The White House had previously suggested that the judge's verbal order was ignored before it was put in writing.

The Alien Enemies Act dates back to 1789 and, among other things, allows for the exemption from prosecution of those targeted by it. It was a wartime law designed to quickly expel migrants deemed to be collaborating with enemy countries. When the US president invoked it, he did so by declaring an invasion by members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Before Trump, the law had only been used three times. The last time was during World War II to detain and expel Japanese, German, and Italian immigrants.