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June 6 (UPI) — A federal judge temporarily paused President Donald Trump‘s ban on foreign nationals coming to study, teach, or do research at Harvard University, pending a hearing later in June.

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs’ ruling Thursday night came after Harvard filed a suit in Boston alleging Trump’s proclamation, issued a day earlier, was unlawful because it violated the First Amendment.

Burroughs said she was granting Harvard’s motion for a restraining order against the Homeland Security Department, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Justice Department, State Department and the Student and Exchange Visitor Program after accepting Harvard’s claim that it would otherwise “sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there was an opportunity to hear from all parties.”

The motion was in a hastily amended complaint by Harvard after Trump on Wednesday suspended entry of all foreign nationals “who enter or attempt to enter the United States to begin attending Harvard,” and directed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to consider cancelling the visas of foreigners already there.

She said the court would reconvene on June 16 for a full hearing on whether Trump’s proclamation is legal.

Burroughs’ order also extended through June 20 a temporary restraining order she issued May 23, preventing DHS from implementing a ban on Harvard sponsoring holders of F-1 and J-1 non-immigrant visas, something the university has been permitted to do for more than seven decades.

The school’s legal team argued Wednesday’s proclamation was an effort to get around this restraining order.

“The proclamation simply reflects the administration’s effort to accomplish the very result that the Court sought to prevent. The Court should not stand for that,” Harvard’s legal counsel alleged in court filings.

Harvard has maintained that the orders represent executive overreach, while Trump insists there is a national security risk posed by its foreign students.

The Trump administration has demanded that Harvard water down its diversity, equality and inclusion policies in hiring and admissions, beef up enforcement of anti-Semitism measures on campus following anti-Gaza war protests and hand over the records of its international students.

Trump’s proclamation stated that the step was in the national interest because he believed Harvard’s refusal to share “information that the federal government requires to safeguard national security and the American public” showed it was not suitable for foreign nationals.

In April, Trump cancelled more than $2 billion in federal funding that the university receives and threatened to remove its tax-exemption status and ability to enroll overseas students.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Hill that Harvard’s lawsuit was a bid to “kneecap the President’s constitutionally vested powers” to suspend entry to the country of persons whose presence was not in line with national interests.

“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments,” McLaughlin said. “The Trump administration is committed to restoring common sense to our student visa system; no lawsuit, this or any other, is going to change that. We have the law, the facts, and common sense on our side.”

June 2 (UPI) — A Trump-appointed judge in California on Monday blocked the Alien Enemies Act deportation of a Venezuelan migrant in the Los Angeles area, saying the administration failed to provide due process.

U.S. District Judge John Holcomb, who was nominated by President Donald Trump in 2019, issued a preliminary injunction to keep most Venezuelan migrants in central California, Los Angeles and Orange County from being deported under the 1798 law.

“The government is hereby preliminarily enjoined and restrained from removing or transferring out of this district any member of the putative class pursuant to the Proclamation pending further Order of the Court regarding the amount of notice and process that is due prior to removal,” Holcomb wrote.

The Alien Enemies Act allows the removal or deportation of migrants during an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” of the United States. Trump has argued that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua’s actions are a “predatory incursion.”

Holcomb’s ruling follows a complaint filed by Darin Antonio Arevalo Millan, a Venezuelan citizen currently being held at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Adelanto, Calif. Arevalo wanted the judge to order the government to provide at least 30 days’ notice before any deportation of Venezuelan citizens.

While the Trump administration told the court that Arevalo was not detained under the Alien Enemies Act, Holcomb ruled that Arevalo still “faces an imminent threat of removal.”

“Arevalo seeks to avoid being deported as an alien enemy without being afforded the opportunity to challenge that designation — not to avoid deportation altogether,” Holcomb wrote.

Judges in New York, Colorado and Texas have ruled that the president is misusing the Alien Enemies Act, while a judge in Pennsylvania ruled last month that Trump can use the law for alleged gang members if they are given enough notice for due process.

The U.S. Supreme Court also ruled last month that the Trump administration can revoke special legal protections for nearly 350,000 Venezuelan nationals living temporarily in the United States.

The Temporary Protection Status program is extended to migrants every 18 months, if they cannot live or work safely in their home country, due to war or natural disaster. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in February protections for certain migrants or violent gangs are not in the U.S. national interest.

May 29 (UPI) — A federal judge blocked the Trump administration Thursday from its attempt to deny Harvard University’s ability to admit international students.

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs said in a hearing she plans to issue a preliminary injunction requested by Harvard and then extended a temporary restraining order that stops the administration from any attempt to follow through on its threat.

Twenty-seven percent of Harvard’s student body consists of foreign students, and it filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration last week after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered the termination of the school’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program, or SEVP certification.

Noem said in a press release last week, “This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.”

Her order also stated that foreign students at Harvard would need to transfer or lose their legal status.

The Harvard International Office’s Director of Immigration Services Maureen Martin filed a supplemental declaration in addition to the lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday, and among the concerns listed in the suit, she wrote: “As a result of the revocation notice, students and faculty alike have expressed profound fear, concern, and confusion. Faculty members and administrators have been inundated with questions from current international students and scholars about their status and options.”

CNN reported that Burroughs told the lawyers for both Harvard and the Trump administration to agree upon how to keep the student visa program in place, to which she added, “It doesn’t need to be draconian, but I want to make sure it’s worded in such a way that nothing changes.”

The Trump administration has also focused on Harvard’s finances in addition to the effort to block the enrollment of foreign students, as it announced Tuesday it plans to cancel all its contracts with Harvard University.

WASHINGTON — A federal trade court on Wednesday blocked President Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs on imports under an emergency-powers law.

The ruling from a three-judge panel at the New York-based Court of International Trade came after several lawsuits arguing Trump has exceeded his authority, left U.S. trade policy dependent on his whims and unleashed economic chaos.

The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. The Trump administration is expected to appeal.

At least seven lawsuits are challenging the levies, the centerpiece of Trump’s trade policy.

Tariffs must typically be approved by Congress, but Trump has says he has the power to act because the country’s trade deficits amount to a national emergency. He imposed tariffs on most of the countries in the world at one point, sending markets reeling.

The plaintiffs argue that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the use of tariffs.

Even if it did, they say, the trade deficit does not meet the law’s requirement that an emergency be triggered only by an “unusual and extraordinary threat.” The U.S. has run a trade deficit with the rest of the world for 49 consecutive years.

Trump’s tendency to levy extremely high import taxes and then retreat has created what’s known as the “TACO” trade, an acronym coined by the Financial Times’ Robert Armstrong that stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” Markets generally sell off when Trump makes his tariff threats and then recover after he backs down.

Trump was visibly offended when asked about the phrase Wednesday and rejected the idea that he’s “chickening out,” saying that the reporter’s inquiry was “nasty.”

“You call that chickening out?” Trump said. “It’s called negotiation,” adding that he sets a “ridiculous high number and I go down a little bit, you know, a little bit” until the figure is more reasonable.

Trump defended his approach of jacking up tariff rates to 145% on Chinese goods, only to pull back to 30% for 90 days of negotiations. He similarly last week threatened to impose a 50% tax on goods from the European Union starting in June, only to delay the tariff hike until July 9 so that negotiations can occur while the baseline 10% tariff continues to be charged. Similar dramas have played out over autos, electronics and the universal tariffs that Trump announced on April 2 that were based in part on individual trade deficits with other countries.

Trump imposed tariffs on most of the countries in the world in an effort to reverse America’s massive and longstanding trade deficits. He earlier plastered levies on imports from Canada, China and Mexico to combat the illegal flow of immigrants and the synthetic opioids across the U.S. border.

His administration argues that courts approved then-President Richard Nixon’s emergency use of tariffs in 1971, and that only Congress, and not the courts, can determine the “political” question of whether the president’s rationale for declaring an emergency complies with the law.

Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs shook global financial markets and led many economists to downgrade the outlook for U.S. economic growth. So far, though, the tariffs appear to have had little impact on the world’s largest economy.

A lawsuit was filed by a group of small businesses, including a wine importer, V.O.S. Selections, whose owner has said the tariffs are having a major impact and his company may not survive.

A dozen states also filed suit, led by Oregon. “This ruling reaffirms that our laws matter, and that trade decisions can’t be made on the president’s whim,” Atty. Gen. Dan Rayfield said.

Whitehurst and Boak write for the Associated Press. A.P. writers Zeke Miller and Paul Wiseman contributed to this report.

May 23 (UPI) — A federal judge in San Francisco on Friday issued an injunction, blocking President Donald Trump from laying off thousands of federal employees working at more than 20 government agencies.

The order issued by U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of California Susan Illston also bars the Department of Government Efficiency and U.S. Office of Management and Budget from making further reductions to the federal workforce.

“Presidents may set policy priorities for the executive branch, and agency heads may implement them. This much is undisputed. But Congress creates federal agencies, funds them, and gives them duties that-by statute-they must carry out,” Illston wrote in her 51-page ruling.

“Agencies may not conduct large-scale reorganizations and reductions in force in blatant disregard of Congress’s mandates, and a President may not initiate large-scale executive branch reorganization without partnering with Congress.”

The Justice Department said in court Friday it plans to appeal the judge’s decision.

Trump in February issued an executive order declaring his intention to reduce the size and scope of the federal government.

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget then began large-scale layoffs of thousands of federal employees later that month.

A separate executive order in March targets a further seven agencies.

The lawsuit filed by the American Federation of Government Employees seeks to block the Trump administration from carrying out those layoffs and seeks to have fired employees re-hired.

Several other local governments, unions and other groups have filed similar lawsuits, calling the layoffs unlawful.

The Justice Department said in court Friday it plans to appeal the judge’s decision.

“The defendants in this case are President Trump, numerous federal agencies, and the heads of those agencies. Defendants insist that the new administration does not need Congress’s support to lay off and restructure large swathes of the federal workforce, essentially telling the Court, ‘Nothing to see here.’ In their view, federal agencies are not reorganizing. Rather, they have simply initiated reductions in force according to established regulations and ‘consistent with applicable law.’ The Court and the bystanding public should just move along,” the judge wrote Friday.

“Yet the role of a district court is to examine the evidence, and at this stage of the case the evidence discredits the executive’s position and persuades the Court that plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their suit.”

Friday’s ruling comes a day after a federal judge in Massachusetts issued a separate injunction prohibiting the Trump administration from further layoffs at the Department of Education. U.S. District Judge Myong Joun’s ruling also forces the federal government to rehire Education Department employees previously let go under Trump’s executive orders.

“Indeed, the Court holds the President likely must request Congressional cooperation to order the changes he seeks, and thus issues a preliminary injunction to pause large-scale reductions in force and reorganizations in the meantime.” Illston wrote Friday.

May 23 (UPI) — A federal judge in Massachusetts on Friday issued an injunction that blocks President Donald Trump‘s administration from stopping Harvard University’s enrollment of international students.

The Trump administration may not proceed with an order that blocks Harvard from using the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Massachusetts Allison D. Burroughs said in her written ruling.

Such an order would cause Harvard to “sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties,” Burroughs wrote.

On Thursday, the Trump administration blocked Harvard from using the SEVP process to enroll foreign students, because of the school’s “refusal to comply with multiple requests to provide the Department of Homeland Security pertinent information while perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students.”

Harvard filed a lawsuit, naming the Justice Department, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others as defendants, seeking to block the move.

“This revocation is a blatant violation of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act. It is the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students,” the lawsuit contends.

The university contends the administration’s move would negatively affect more than 7,000 current students.

“For more than 70 years, Harvard University has been certified by the federal government to enroll international students under the F-1 visa program, and it has long been designated as an exchange program sponsor to host J-1 nonimmigrants. Harvard has, over this time, developed programs and degrees tailored to its international students, invested millions to recruit the most talented such students, and integrated its international students into all aspects of the Harvard community,” the school said in its application for an injunction.

This week’s news is the latest chapter in a back-and-forth saga between the Trump administration and the post-secondary institution.

Last month, the federal government said it would withhold some $2 billion in funding. Earlier this month, the government blocked further grants, accusing Harvard of “engaging in a systemic pattern of violating federal law.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the school is resisting what the administration calls “common-sense reforms.”

Earlier, the school took to social media to state its views on the matter. On Twitter, it posted, “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”

Later, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also used the same social-media app to criticize the administration’s moves. “America cannot long remain free, nor first among nations, if it becomes the kind of place where universities are dismantled because they don’t align politically with the current head of the government,” he said.

Reuter

Graduation in the shadow of uncertainty

Student dreams left in limbo

The government vs. an ultra-elite university

The Trump administration blocked Harvard University’s ability to enrol international students on Thursday. The move marks a sharp escalation in tensions between the White House and the Ivy League university.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says move is response to university’s refusal to comply with Trump demands.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has blocked Harvard University’s ability to enrol international students, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

In a post on X on Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the Trump administration was “holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus”.

“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enrol foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments,” she said. “Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused.”

In a letter to the university’s administration, Noem said the university’s Student Exchange Visitor Program certification has been revoked. The programme is overseen by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, which falls under the agency Noem leads.

The move means that not only will Harvard not be able to accept foreign students on its campus, but current students will need to “transfer to another university in order to maintain their non-immigrant status”, the letter said.

Harvard did not immediately respond to the move, which was first reported by the New York Times.

The action represents an escalation amid a wider standoff between the university, which has refused to agree to a list of demands related to its diversity programmes and response to pro-Palestine protests, and the Trump administration.

The administration has responded with three rounds of federal funding and grants cuts. Harvard is currently pursuing a lawsuit accusing the administration of defying the US constitution in its actions.

More to come…

May 22 (UPI) — A federal judge in Massachusetts issued an injunction Thursday that blocks the Trump administration from its plan to dismantle the Department of Education, and that those employees recently fired from the department be rehired.

U.S. District Judge Myong J. Joun stated in his ruling: “The Department must be able to carry out its functions and its obligations under the [Department of Education Organization Act] and other relevant statutes as mandated by Congress.”

Education Department spokesperson Madi Biedermann stated Thursday that the administration “will immediately challenge this on an emergency basis.”

Joun ruled on the first civil action that was filed by the State of New York against Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon and Somerville Public Schools of Massachusetts against President Donald Trump that stated “a preliminary injunction is warranted to return the Department to the status quo such that it can comply with its statutory obligations.”

President Donald Trump had issued an executive order in March that sought to close the department, despite the Department of Education Organization Act, which shows that as the Department was created by Congress, it can only be closed by an act of Congress.

May 22 (UPI) — A signing ceremony ceding the British Indian Ocean Territory of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius on Thursday was called off at the last moment after Britain’s High Court granted an injunction in the middle of the night to islanders opposing the deal.

“On-call” judge, Justice Goose, granted the temporary stay at 2:25 a.m. local time to two Chagos petitioners, ruling that the defendant, the Home Office, must “maintain the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom over the British Indian Ocean Territory until further order,” pending a further hearing during working hours Thursday.

The 11th-hour legal action forced the ceremony with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Mauritian government representatives to be put on hold.

Stuart Lake, legal counsel for Beatrice Pompe, one of the claimants, told the Financial Times that his client was “deeply concerned that the government has chosen to give up sovereignty of the Chagos Islands without any consultation or protections for those that are indigenous to the islands.”

A British government spokesman declined to comment but insisted the deal with its former colony was “the right thing to protect the British people and our national security.”

Under the agreement, Britain will transfer sovereignty to Mauritius of the archipelago, home to a giant U.K.-U.S. military base on the island of Diego Garcia, but retain control of Diego Garcia by leasing it back on a 99-year, multi-billion dollar deal.

The United States pays Britain for use of the base, but the figure has never been made public.

Diego Garcia inhabitants have been engaged in a decades-long legal battle against their forcible displacement during the construction of the base throughout the late 1960s, mainly to Mauritius, the Seychelles and Britain, with the Chagos Islands split off from Mauritius when it became independent in 1968.

Joining a protest by Chagos people outside Parliament, the opposition Conservative Party’s shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel called Thursday’s legal intervention “a humiliation” for Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

“Their rights, views and voices over the future of Chagos have been ignored by Labour which continues to cause distress and uncertainty for this wonderful community,” she wrote in a post on X.

“Labour’s Chagos Surrender Deal is bad for our defence and security interests, bad for British taxpayers and bad for British Chagossians,” said Patel.

The deal has also been condemned by Human Rights Watch, which has demanded Britain and the United States pay reparations after a 2023 report alleged the “forced displacement of the Chagossians and ongoing abuses amount to crimes against humanity committed by a colonial power against an Indigenous people.”

The United States initially welcomed the deal when it was struck in October and will see the other 57 currently uninhabited islands in the archipelago opened up for settlement. Diego Garcia, however, will remain out of bounds to its former residents and their descendants on “security grounds.”

U.S. President Joe Biden called the deal “a clear demonstration that through diplomacy and partnership, countries can overcome long-standing historical challenges to reach peaceful and mutually beneficial outcomes.”

But the deal was delayed after Donald Trump won back the presidency in November, pending his approval, and after the elections days later in Mauritius over the value of the lease.

Trump gave his backing in February during a visit to Washington by Starmer, despite warnings from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other senior Republicans who said Mauritius’ links to China posed a “serious security threat” to U.S. national security.

Decision comes after two British nationals born on Diego Garcia, the largest island in the archipelago, claimed the islands should remain under UK control. 

A British High Court judge has temporarily blocked the government from transferring sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

The last-minute injunction on Thursday morning came hours before the agreement was expected to be signed at a virtual ceremony with representatives from the Mauritian government.

The High Court decision was granted after action was taken by Bernadette Dugasse and Bertrice Pompe, two British nationals who were born at the Diego Garcia military base on Chagos and claimed that the islands should remain under British control.

High Court judge Julian Goose temporarily blocked the British government from taking any “conclusive or legally binding step to conclude its negotiations concerning the possible transfer of the British Indian Ocean Territory, also known as the Chagos Archipelago, to a foreign government”.

“The defendant is to maintain the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom over the British Indian Ocean Territory until further order,” he said.

Another court hearing is set for 10.30am (09:30 GMT).

Earlier this year, the lawyer for the two nationals, Michael Polak, said on his chambers website that the government’s attempt to “give away” the islands without formal consultation with its residents is a “continuation of their terrible treatment by the authorities in the past”.

“They remain the people with the closest connection to the islands, but their needs and wishes are being ignored,” Polak said.

The UK, which has controlled the region since 1814, separated the Chagos Islands in 1965 from Mauritius to create the British Indian Ocean Territory.

In the early 1970s, the government evicted about 1,500 residents to Mauritius and Seychelles to make way for the Diego Garcia airbase on the largest island.

In October, the government announced a draft agreement to hand the islands to Mauritius and allow Britain and the United States to continue using the Diego Garcia base under a 99-year lease.

US President Donald Trump’s administration, which was consulted on the deal, gave its approval. However, finalising the agreement was delayed by a change in government in Mauritius and reported last-minute negotiations over costs.

The United States Supreme Court has granted an emergency petition from a group of migrants in Texas, barring the use of an 18th-century wartime law to expedite their removals.

Friday’s unsigned decision (PDF) is yet another blow to the administration of President Donald Trump, who has sought to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to swiftly deport undocumented immigrants out of the US.

Only two conservative justices dissented: Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

While the high court has yet to rule on the merits of Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, it did issue “injunctive relief” to Venezuelan migrants faced with expulsion under the centuries-old law.

“We have long held that ‘no person shall be’ removed from the United States ‘without opportunity, at some time, to be heard’,” the court majority wrote in its ruling.

It reaffirmed a previous opinion that migrants in the US are entitled to due process – in other words, they are entitled to a fair hearing in the judicial system – before their deportation.

Friday’s case was brought by two unnamed migrants from Venezuela, identified only by initials. They are being held in a detention centre in north Texas as they face deportation.

The Trump administration has accused them, and others from Venezuela, of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang. It has further sought to paint undocumented migration into the US as an “invasion” and link Tren de Aragua’s activities in the US to the Venezuelan government, an assertion that a recently declassified intelligence memo disputes.

That, the Trump administration has argued, justifies its use of the Alien Enemies Act, which has only been used three times prior in US history – and only during periods of war.

But Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act has spurred a legal backlash, with several US district courts hearing petitions from migrants fearing expulsion under the law.

Multiple judges have barred the law’s use for expedited removals. But one judge in Pennsylvania ruled the Trump administration could deploy the law – provided it offer appropriate notice to those facing deportation. She suggested 21 days.

The Supreme Court on Friday did not weigh in on whether Trump’s use of the law was merited. Instead, its ruling – 24 pages in total, including a dissent – hewed closely to the issue of whether the Venezuelans in question deserved relief from their imminent deportation under the law.

The majority of the nine-justice bench noted that “evidence” it had seen in the case suggested “the Government had in fact taken steps on the afternoon of April 18” to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, even transporting the migrants “from their detention facility to an airport and later returning them”.

The justices asserted that they had a right to weigh in on the case, in order to prevent “irreparable harm” to the migrants and assert their jurisdiction in the case. Otherwise, they pointed out a deportation could put the migrants beyond their reach.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh went a step further in a separate opinion, calling on the Supreme Court to issue a final and binding ruling in the matter, rather than simply grant this one petition.

“The circumstances call for a prompt and final resolution, which likely can be provided only by this Court,” he said, agreeing with the majority’s decision.

Thomas and Alito, in their dissent, argued the Supreme Court had not afforded enough time to a lower court to rule on the emergency petition.

In the aftermath of the ruling, Trump lashed out on Truth Social, portraying the Supreme Court’s majority as overly lax towards migrants.

“THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!” Trump wrote in the first of two consecutive posts.

In the second, he called Friday’s decision the mark of a “bad and dangerous day in America”. He complained that affirming the right to due process would result in “a long, protracted, and expensive Legal Process, one that will take, possibly, many years for each person”.

He also argued that the high court was preventing him from exercising his executive authority.

“The Supreme Court of the United States is not allowing me to do what I was elected to do,” he wrote, imagining a circumstance where extended deportation hearings would lead to “bedlam” in the US.

His administration has long accused the courts of interference in his agenda. But critics have warned that Trump’s actions – particularly, alleged efforts to ignore court orders – are eroding the US’s constitutional system of checks and balances.

In a statement after the ruling, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) praised the court’s decision as a bulwark against human rights abuses.

“The court’s decision to stay removals is a powerful rebuke to the government’s attempt to hurry people away to a Gulag-type prison in El Salvador,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.

“The use of a wartime authority during peacetime, without even affording due process, raises issues of profound importance.”

The Supreme Court currently boasts a conservative supermajority, with six right-leaning judges and three left-leaning ones.

Three among them were appointed by Trump himself. Those three sided with the majority.

May 16 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked the administration of President Donald Trump from using the rare wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan detainees accused of being members of violent gangs.

The Supreme Court, in its decision, also rebuked judges from a U.S. District Court in North Texas for waiting too long to act on urgent requests related to the impending deportations.

The decision, which sent the case for deliberation back to the Fifth Circuit court, effectively blocks any removals under the Alien Enemies Act until the case can be properly reviewed.

The case is rooted in an April 17 request from two Venezuelan detainees for a temporary restraining order to stop their removal from the United States, which the district court denied that evening.

Later that night, the two detainees were given notice of their imminent removal, leading their lawyers to file a second, emergency request for a temporary restraining order to halt their deportation just after midnight.

“The named applicants, along with putative class members, are entitled to constitutionally adequate notice prior to any removal, in order to pursue appropriate relief,” the Supreme Court wrote in its latest ruling.

The lawyers asked the court to rule on the second request or hold a status conference by 1:30 p.m. The district court failed to rule on the request or hold a status conference that day, with their inaction becoming central to the Supreme Court’s rebuke.

“A district court’s inaction in the face of extreme urgency and a high risk of ‘serious, perhaps irreparable,’ consequences may have the effect of refusing an injunction,” the Supreme Court ruled.

By 3 p.m. on April 18, the lawyers for the detainees appealed to the Fifth Circuit, claiming that the district court’s inaction amounted to a constructive denial — which is when a court does not officially decline a request but acts, or fails to act, in a way that is effectively a denial.

The Supreme Court previously ruled in this case, ordering an emergency injunction that evening to stop the deportations before midnight. That ruling was a procedural hold, not a final ruling, and did not weigh in on the legality of the deportations.

In the days following the emergency injunction, the Fifth Circuit dismissed the appeal, reasoning that the detainees had not given the district court enough time to respond before escalating the case.

This prompted the process for the case to return before the Supreme Court as the detainees asked the high court to treat their emergency application as a formal petition for the court to hear the case, review the lower court’s rulings and to settle the constitutional questions raised by their deportations.

The Supreme Court has vacated the Fifth Circuit court’s dismissal and sent it back to the lower court for a proper legal review, preventing the government from further deportations until the case can be properly decided.

The high court clarified that, as on April 19, its ruling does not address the underlying merits of each side regarding removals under the Alien Enemies Act.

“We recognize the significance of the Government’s national security interests as well as the necessity that such interests be pursued in a manner consistent with the Constitution,” the Supreme Court wrote. “In light of the foregoing, lower courts should address AEA cases expeditiously.”

Justice Samuel Alito dissented, joined by Clarence Thomas, arguing that the Supreme Court never had the legal authority to step in because there was no valid appeal since the district court never actually denied the temporary restraining order request.