The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Saturday afternoon to reject an emergency request to temporarily pause the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants to El Salvador swiftly detained in portions of Texas.

In a court filing, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the high court to “dissolve its current administrative stay” issued early Saturday and to allow “lower courts to address the relevant legal and factual questions.”

The emergency order temporarily blocks the deportations until the high court resolves the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) emergency appeal, filed hours before the pause over concerns that more deportation flights were imminent.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, two of the court’s leading conservatives, dissented.  

In Sauer’s filing, he claimed that lawyers for the migrants had “improperly skilled over the lower courts,” making their request that the Supreme Court step in “fatally premature.”

He also claimed “the government has provided advance notice” before commencing removals, giving detainees “adequate time to file” to file a petition disputing the removals. Sauer said the government had agreed not to remove detainees who had filed those claims.

The ACLU simultaneously asked several courts to immediately intervene Friday, warning that the Venezuelan migrants could otherwise be given life sentences in a notorious Salvadoran megaprison without the opportunity for judicial review. 

“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,” the Supreme Court’s order reads. 

The class extends to any migrant detained in the Northern District of Texas who is being removed under the 18th century Alien Enemies Act. It does not apply elsewhere, though judges overseeing separate cases have temporarily blocked deportations for those detained in the Southern District of New York, the District of Colorado and the Southern District of Texas.  

The 1798 law enables migrants to be summarily deported amid a declared war or an “invasion” by a foreign nation. The law has been leveraged just three previous times, all during wars, but Trump contends he can use it because the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is effectively invading the U.S.

The administration first invoked the law last month to deport more than 100 migrants to a Salvadoran megaprison. On Friday, the ACLU pulled out all the stops as it raised alarm that another wave of deportations was actively underway, saying the administration was already busing migrants to the airport. 

Zach Schonfeld contributed to this report.