Washington – The Supreme Court on Friday told the conservative judges in Texas that they must offer an audience to Venezuelans detained to whom the Trump administration wants to send to a prison in El Salvador.
The judges, more than two dissidents, rebuked the Judges of Texas and the lawyers of the Trump administration for quickly moving a weekend in mid -April to put these men on the planes.
That led to an order after midnight from the Superior Court that told the administration that “he could not eliminate any member of the alleged class of detainees.” The administration had argued that the authority had to deport men as “alien enemies” under a war law adopted in 1798.
On Friday, the court issued an unusual order of eight pages to explain its previous decision. In doing so, the judges criticized a federal judge in Lubbock, Texas, and the 5th Court of Appeals of the United States Circuit for not taking measures to protect the rights of due process of detained men.
The ruling pointed out that the government “can eliminate the appointed plaintiffs or members of the class supposed under other legal authorities.”
The order has a clear message that the judges are concerned about the pressure of the Trump administration to accelerate deportations and the lack of will of some judges to protect the rights to due process of the law.
After the ruling was issued, President Trump wrote in Truth Social on Friday: “The Supreme Court will not allow us to get the criminals out of our country.” He added in a second publication: “This decision will allow more criminals to be poured into our country, doing great damage to our precious American public.”
Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the Immigrant Rights Project of the ACL and the main lawyer, said in a statement: “The decision of the court to remain in the removals is a powerful reprimand for the government's attempt to contribute people to a Gulag type prison in El Salvador.
On a Saturday in mid -March, Trump's immigration officials sent three Texas detainees plans to the maximum security prison in El Salvador before a federal judge in Washington could intervene. The prisoners included Kilmar Abrego García, a Maryland man who had an immigration order that was supposed to be sent from being returned to his native El Salvador.
Subsequently, Trump's officials said the men arrested, including Abrego García, could not be returned to this country. They did it despite the fact that the Supreme Court had said they had the duty to “facilitate” the return of Abrego García.
The same scenario was repeated almost in mid -April, but from a different prison in Texas.
ACLU lawyers rushed to present an emergency appeal before the United States District Judge James Hendrix. They said that some of the men arrested were on buses that were heading to the airport. They argued that they deserved a hearing because many of them said they were not members of a crime gang.
The judge denied the appeals for all but two of the men arrested.
The 5th circuit confirmed the judge's lack of action and blamed the detainees, saying they gave the judge “only 42 minutes to act.”
The Supreme Court did not agree with both on Friday and revoked a decision of the 5th circuit.
“The inaction of a district court in the face of extreme urgency and a high risk of serious” consequences “, perhaps irreparable” left men detained without options, the court said. “Here, the inaction of the District Court, not for 42 minutes, but for 14 hours and 28 minutes, had the practical effect of rejecting a court order for detainees who face an imminent threat of severe and irreparable damage,” the judges wrote.
“The fifth amendment entitles foreigners to the due legal process in the context of removal procedures. The rules of due process procedure are destined to protect” against “erroneous or unjustified deprivation of life, freedom or property,” said the majority. “We have held for a long time that no person will be eliminated from the United States without opportunity, at some point, to be heard.”
Judges Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas disagreed last month, and did the same on Friday.
Friday's failure does not affect the status of men who have already been sent to El Salvador.
