The Donald Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court for permission to resume deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under an 18th-century wartime law.
The Department of Justice has filed to lift Washington, DC-based US District Judge James Boasberg’s 15 March order, which called for a temporary pause to the summary removals of the Venezuelans while a legal challenge to Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to justify the deportations plays out.
This 18th-century law has only been used in wartime.
The Justice Department explained on Friday that the case seeks to determine who has the authority to conduct sensitive national security-related operations—the president or the judiciary.
“The Constitution supplies a clear answer: the President,”; the department wrote.
“The republic cannot afford a different choice.”;
Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since the Second World War in an attempt to justify the deportation of hundreds of people under a presidential proclamation labelling the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.
