In the Midnight Hour
On Saturday, April 19, just after midnight, the U.S. Supreme Court took an extraordinary emergency action. It temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting a group of Venezuelan migrants being held in Texas under the Alien Enemies Act.
Created in 1798, this wartime authority has been used only three times in U.S. history and always during declared wars: the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II. The Trump administration invoked this authority on March 15 against the purported invasion of the Venezuelan gang known as Tren De Aragua, and applied it to all suspected gang members 14 years or older.
On April 7, the Court had ruled that the administration could continue deporting Venezuelan migrants under this law, with the caveat that detainees must be given adequate notice before the deportation and must be allowed to seek a hearing.
In other words, they must be afforded their due process rights.
The men’s lawyers convinced the Supreme Court justices—with dissent from Justices Alito and Thomas—that emergency relief was necessary to ensure that these men would not be delivered to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador until they had a fair chance to challenge their detention in the American judicial system.
The Importance of Due Process
Jose Luis Martinez is the legal director for Justice for All Immigrants, our ILJ site in Greater Houston and San Antonio. He also acts as a consulting attorney for removal defense and policy issues for the ILJ Network. We asked him to help us better understand the importance of due process. He enthusiastically agreed.
“Let’s say you make your neighbor mad one day because you didn’t cut your lawn,” Jose begins. “He reports you to ICE, claims you are a gang member, and pretty soon, ICE is knocking on your door.
“But you’re not a gang member. You’ve never been a gang member. But now, because there is an allegation against you, that’s possibly enough for the government to put you on a plane and fly you out of the country. All without any sort of recourse to prove your innocence, and, most importantly, without any sort of standard of proof for the government to prove their allegation.”
As for migrants charged with terrorism or other criminal activity, Jose notes that there are provisions in our immigration laws and in our criminal laws to arrest them, detain them, and deport them.
“Those already exist,” he states. “But the administration appears reluctant to produce evidence or prove their case in an open, fair, and transparent setting.”
No way out
The Trump administration publicly announced its intention to employ the Enemy Aliens Act on March 15 at 3:53 pm. By 7:36 p.m. that same day, 238 Venezuelan nationals were all on flights to El Salvador, in defiance of a federal judge’s written and oral orders.
They did not know what was happening to them. Most of these men had hearings scheduled before immigration judges; at least one had Temporary Protected Status. Included in the group were a soccer coach, a food delivery worker, and a gay make-up artist seeking asylum in the United States.
According to investigative reporting from CBS, 75% of the 238 original group—179 men—have no criminal record here or in their home country. And now, confined and kept incommunicado, they have essentially disappeared into one of the most brutal prisons in the world.
“This is why you should have due process,” Jose declares emphatically. “Because you should have the right to defend yourself against allegations of criminality.
“No matter who. No matter what.”