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A federal judge in Texas issued an order Wednesday temporarily blocking the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport people held in a south Texas immigration detention center without due process. A second federal judge in New York said in a hearing that he planned a similar order applying to migrants held in the Southern District of New York.
In Texas, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., in Brownsville, blocked the removal of any person held in El Valle Detention Center in Raymondville, who could be subject to President Donald Trump’s proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime deportation law.
District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in the Southern District of New York said he would issue a temporary restraining order Wednesday blocking the Trump administration from deporting without a proper notice and hearing any Venezuelan migrants the administration has said are removable under the act.
NBC News has reached out to the Justice Department for comment on both cases.
Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act last month after declaring the Venezuela gang Tren de Aragua an invading force. Immigration officials have since used that act to deport hundreds of people, without immigration hearings, alleging that they are members of the gang. Many have ended up in a mega-prison in El Salvador known for its harsh conditions and reported abuse.
The judges made their decisions in separate habeas petitions filed, in Texas, by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Texas, and in New York by the ACLU Foundation. They follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Monday, allowing the Trump administration to deport men it alleges are members of the Tren de Aragua gang under the Alien Enemies Act.
The nation’s highest court ruled that the original lawsuit, filed in Washington, should have been filed in the state where the plaintiffs were detained. It also ruled that the plaintiffs should be allowed to challenge their detentions and whether the Alien Enemies Act is being lawfully applied to them.
The ACLU’s lawsuit in Texas was filed on behalf of three Venezuelans who are being held at the El Valle Detention Center. Rodriguez specifically blocked the removals of those plaintiffs, identified in the lawsuit as W.G.H, J.G.G. and J.A.V.
But he also blocked the Trump administration from removing anyone currently housed at El Valle Detention Center identified by the government as subject to removal under the president’s March 15 proclamation targeting members of Tren de Aragua.
The judge also blocked any transportation or relocation of “such persons” outside of Willacy and Cameron counties in Texas without a court order. The order is in effect until 5 p.m., April 23.
Rodriguez scheduled a hearing at 1:30 p.m. Friday to consider whether to extend the temporary restraining order or issue other forms of emergency relief.
He said he issued the order preventing their removal so that the plaintiffs could develop “a fuller record” for the court as it considers their request for a preliminary injunction and other relief. He also said he issued the order “to prevent the immediate and irreparable injury that may occur with the immediate removal of any Venezuelan” immigrant who may be subject to the president’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.
In the New York case brought by two Venezuelans, Hellerstein said Wednesday that he would issue an order temporarily blocking the deportations of individuals in the jurisdiction of the Southern District under the Alien Enemies Act.
He said those detained within the Southern District of New York must be given “appropriate” or “proper” notice and a chance to challenge the government’s allegations in court.
“Given the history, it seems they need to be protected and given the opportunity before they are deported,” Hellerstein said
The government said Hellerstein’s order would apply to less than 10 people in the district.
The Alien Enemies Act of 1798, not used since World War II, allows the president to detain noncitizens in wartime and remove them when the country is under invasion or experiencing “predatory incursion.” The law was most notably when people of Japanese descent in the U.S. were rounded up and held in internment camps; the government also held people of German and Italian descent.
The Supreme Court decision left various legal questions about the use of the Alien Enemies Act undecided, including whether the Trump administration can invoke it against gang members.
In its filing in Texas, the ACLU said the administration has yet to explain what notice it intends to provide.
“That the government has yet to do so is especially problematic given the position it took” before the Supreme Court’s ruling that were the injunction blocking deportation of the detainees lifted, it would in no uncertain terms immediately begin deporting plaintiffs without notice, the group said in its complaint.
In the original lawsuit filed by the ACLU, Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg blocked Trump’s deportations of the plaintiffs and had provisionally certified the lawsuit as a class-action suit applying to all Venezuelans in U.S. custody who were not U.S. citizens. The Supreme Court’s decision lifted that order.
The original case led to sparring between the administration and Boasberg, who has questioned whether Trump administration lawyers ignored his verbal order to turn around or return planes carrying the deportees back to the U.S.
In a separate case, a federal judge in Maryland has ordered the government to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a U.S. resident with protected legal status, who has a 5-year-old son who is autistic and intellectually disabled, to the country after the government acknowledged it erroneously sent him to the El Salvador prison.
