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President Donald Trump listens during a swearing in ceremony for Dr. Mehmet Oz to be Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, April 18, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
The U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday morning barred the Trump administration from carrying out any further deportations under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA).
The unsigned, terse, two-paragraph ruling came in the form of an order in a pending case, and is likely one of two messages from the nation’s high court to be sent over the weekend.
“There is before the Court an application on behalf of a putative class of detainees seeking an injunction against their removal under the Alien Enemies Act,” the order reads. “The matter is currently pending before the Fifth Circuit. Upon action by the Fifth Circuit, the Solicitor General is invited to file a response to the application before this Court as soon as possible. The Government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court.”
At least five justices voted to grant the stay, which comes in a case originally filed in the Northern District of Texas on Wednesday.
The case began in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s April 7 ruling, which dissolved a nationwide injunction barring summary deportations under the auspices of the obscure wartime law. At the same time, however, all nine justices voted against the government’s use of the AEA without due process.
“‘It is well established that the Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law’ in the context of removal proceedings,” the earlier order reads. “So, the detainees are entitled to notice and opportunity to be heard ‘appropriate to the nature of the case.’ More specifically, in this context, AEA detainees must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act. The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.”
Earlier this week, attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a petition for the writ of habeas corpus in Lone Star State federal court, challenging the “AEA Process” generally. The plaintiffs also filed for a temporary restraining order and class certification.
Understood by the nation’s high court, habeas “has traditionally been a means to secure release from unlawful detention” and is a “means of contesting the lawfulness of restraint and securing release.” Under the basic habeas standard, federal courts consider whether any given detention violates federal law or the U.S. Constitution.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term, denied the motion for a restraining order. The court credited a statement from Department of Justice attorneys that none of the plaintiffs faced “imminent risk of summary removal” under the AEA. Hendrix reserved ruling on the class certification motion.
On Friday, the ACLU quickly filed an interlocutory appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit — stylized as an emergency request for a temporary restraining order.
“Starting yesterday evening, proposed class members have been given notices designating them as alien enemies under the Alien Enemies Act (“AEA”), and they are being told that they will be imminently removed under the AEA, as soon as this afternoon,” the appellate motion reads. “DHS has now publicly announced that AEA removals are imminent.”
That appeal was still pending when the plaintiffs filed their emergency application for an emergency injunction with the Supreme Court.
The ACLU predicated its bid for relief on the Trump administration’s prior AEA actions as exemplified by the related case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father with protected status who the government admittedly wrongfully deported to El Salvador.
From the emergency motion, at length:
The Government’s prior removals putatively conducted under the Alien Enemies Act have transferred individuals from immigration detention in the United States to a prison facility in El Salvador. The Government’s position in other pending litigation has been that it cannot reverse those transfer decisions absent consent from the government of El Salvador. The government of El Salvador, meanwhile, has to-date declined to release individuals putatively removed from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act from its custody, even where the United States Government has conceded that removal was erroneous.
This raises a substantial likelihood that plaintiffs will suffer irreparable injury — detention in El Salvador with no clear pathway to relief through American courts — if no action is taken by the courts immediately. An administrative injunction to freeze the status quo (i.e., plaintiffs’ continued detention in U.S. immigration custody) is thus essential to preserve the possibility of meaningful judicial review.
Citing the authority of a federal law which allows U.S. courts to “issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law,” the high court granted the pause requested by the ACLU.
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As is typical of an order in a pending case, the majority was not listed. Two members of the court, however, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, indicated they “dissent from the Court’s order.”
Alito, for his part, also previewed his intent to issue a separate statement sometime later on Saturday.
