A person walks past the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 21, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
The Supreme Court on Friday granted a request by Venezuelan nationals seeking an injunction against their removal from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act.
In a 7-2 decision, the court said the Trump administration had not given the detainees enough time or adequate resources to challenge their deportations.
“Under these circumstances, notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster,” the ruling said.
The justices barred the removal of the men, who the Trump administration alleges are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, pending a new decision from a lower federal appellate court.
They acknowledged that the Venezuelans’ interests are “particularly weighty,” noting that the government is currently arguing that it cannot “provide for the return” of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, “an individual deported in error to a prison in El Salvador.”
The court did not rule on whether the Alien Enemies Act, which the Trump administration invoked in mid-April to deport the detainees, had been applied correctly.
“To be clear, we decide today only that the detainees are entitled to more notice than was given on April 18,” their ruling said.
The justices noted they were granting only temporary relief while the case returns to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to sort out the question of how much notice is due to those being targeted for removal.
“We recognize the significance of the Government’s national security interests as well as the necessity that such interests be pursued in a manner consistent with the Constitution,” the majority wrote.
“In light of the foregoing, lower courts should address AEA cases expeditiously.”
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from the opinion.
The conservative justices questioned whether the detainees were in “imminent danger of removal,” and said it was “misleading” to suggest that a U.S. District Court in Texas failed to act quickly enough.
“The Court characterizes the District Court’s behavior during the period in question as ‘inaction,’ but in my judgment, that is unfair,” wrote Alito in the dissent joined by Scalia.
Trump first invoked the AEA against Tren de Aragua in mid-March, claiming in an executive proclamation that the gang is “perpetrating an invasion” into the U.S.
That proclamation declared that any Venezuelan over 14 years of age who belonged to the gang and was not a naturalized or lawful resident was subject to removal and “chargeable with actual hostility against the United States.”
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