Trump rebels against the block on deportations under the Foreign Enemies Act and takes it to the Supreme Court.
This is the president's main front with the judiciary, and the high court's decision could mark a turning point in the campaign against migrants.
WashingtonThe Donald Trump administration has escalated the legal battle over the deportation of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act in the final courtroom of the judicial circuit: the Supreme Court. The White House filed an emergency motion this Friday with the high court, requesting that it overturn the block imposed by federal judge James Boasberg on the 19th-century law. It was under the invocation of this wartime law that Trump deported more than 200 Venezuelans in El Salvador without due process, alleging that they allegedly belonged to the criminal gang El Tren de Aragua.
The motion filed with the Supreme Court is a parallel offshoot of Trump's ongoing war against Boasberg, who is still trying to determine whether the government ignored his order in expelling migrants from the Central American country's prisons.
The request comes after the Washington Circuit Court of Appeals denied the same motion filed by the Trump administration. During opening arguments, Judge Patricia Millet asserted that Nazis were treated better under the Enemy Alien Act during World War II than Venezuelans.
The 1789 law was created for wartime purposes to quickly expel migrants deemed to be collaborators with enemy countries. Among other things, the ordinance allows for the exemption of those targeted by it without prosecution. 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.
