By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. judges said on Wednesday they would impose new limits on President Donald Trump’s attempts to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members under a wartime law, after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a broad ban on such removals in another court.
In Manhattan, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said migrants held in parts of New York targeted for deportation using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act must be given notice and the chance to bring a legal challenge. That likely will apply to fewer than 10 people, a government lawyer said in court.
In Brownsville, Texas, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez blocked any potential deportation of three Venezuelans being held in Raymondville, Texas, while he considers next steps.
In an unsigned 5-4 decision on Monday night powered by its conservative justices, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the administration’s request to end Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s two temporary orders preventing such deportations. The court nonetheless said the U.S. government must give sufficient notice to immigrant detainees to allow them to contest their deportation.
On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union sued in Manhattan on behalf of two Venezuelan men detained in Goshen, New York, who said they were at risk of deportation even though they had not been given the chance to challenge the government’s allegations they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang.
The men, referred to in court papers by their initials G.F.F. and J.G.O., were among those protected from deportation by Boasberg’s ruling on March 15, shortly after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act earlier that day to deport the alleged gang members without final removal orders from immigration judges, as is normally required.
Two deportation flights were in the air at the time and brought the migrants to El Salvador, where they are being imprisoned. Boasberg is separately probing whether the Trump administration violated his order by failing to bring the migrants back to the U.S.
G.F.F. had been on one of those planes for about 40 minutes, but a guard later called his name and retrieved him, telling him he “just won the lottery,” his lawyer said in a declaration filed in court.
The ACLU had brought a similar case in Texas on behalf of the three Venezuelans detained there.
The ACLU argues the Alien Enemies Act, best known for its use to intern Japanese, Italian and German immigrants during World War Two, is not applicable because Tren de Aragua’s presence in the U.S. does not constitute an invasion by a hostile nation.
In ending Boasberg’s temporary restraining orders, the Supreme Court said detainees should have contested their deportations in Texas, where they were confined, rather than in Washington. G.F.F. and J.G.O. were transferred to New York on April 4, their lawyers said.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Howard Goller)
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