By Blake Brittain
(Reuters) – The Trump administration told the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday that “dangerous behavior” from a group of Venezuelan migrants detained by the federal government in Texas justified lifting a court order blocking their immediate deportation.
The administration said in a court filing that 23 migrants at a Texas detention facility had “recently barricaded themselves in a housing unit for several hours and threatened to take hostages and harm ICE officers.”
The Supreme Court last month temporarily blocked the government from deporting dozens of migrants after lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union asked it to intervene on an emergency basis.
The administration’s Monday filing said the 23 detainees behind the alleged disruption at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, were moved to the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, on May 4.
Lee Gelernt, the ACLU’s lead attorney in the case, declined to comment on the government’s new filing. White House spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Spokespeople for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
President Donald Trump has invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport accused members of Tren de Aragua, a criminal gang originating from Venezuelan prisons that his administration labels a terrorist group. The administration already has deported to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador more than 200 Venezuelan and Salvadoran men it claims are gang members.
The ACLU said the Alien Enemies Act historically has been employed only in wartime, and that the administration had not given the men a realistic opportunity to contest their removal.
The Supreme Court blocked the administration on April 19 from removing the detainees from the U.S. until further notice from the court. Trump’s administration asked the high court to lift its order later that day.
U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer told the justices in the administration’s Monday filing that the government should be allowed to deport at least some of the migrants immediately under other federal immigration laws. The government also said that moving the detainees to other U.S. facilities “creates ongoing risks of prison recruitment and expansion of Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang activities within the United States.”
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by Leigh Jones and Leslie Adler)
