Supreme Court lifts order blocking deportations of Venezuelans under Alien Enemies Act of 1798

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court lifted a court order that blocked President Donald Trump from deporting Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. 

Migrants can challenge deportations

What we know:

The decision was 5-4 as the court said migrants still must get a chance to challenge their deportation before they are taken out of the country.

The Trump administration must also give them a "reasonable time" to go to court. 

Additionally, the conservative majority said the legal challenges must take place in Texas, not in D.C. 

FILE - 17 members of Venezuela's Tren de Aragua gang and members of the MS-13 gang, who were deported to El Salvador by the US in San Salvador, El Salvador on March 31, 2025. (Photo by El Salvador Press Presidency Office/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The court’s action appears to bar the administration from immediately resuming the flights that last month carried hundreds of migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador. The flights came soon after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II to justify the deportations under a presidential proclamation calling the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.

Trump praises SCOTUS action

What they're saying:

"The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself. A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social site.

What is the Alien Enemies Act of 1798? 

The backstory:

The Alien Enemies Act allows the president to detain, relocate or deport non-citizens from a country that is considered an enemy of the United States during wartime.

Congress passed the Alien Enemies Act as part of the four Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 when the U.S. was about to go to war with France.

The law, invoked during World Wars I and II and the War of 1812, requires a president to declare the United States is at war, giving him extraordinary powers to detain or remove foreigners who otherwise would have protections under immigration or criminal laws. It was last used to justify the detention of Japanese-American civilians during World War II.

Why did Trump invoke the Alien Enemies Act? 

What they're saying:

Trump said the U.S. is being invaded by Tren de Aragua (TdA) – and the sweeping war time law will give the president broader leeway to deport what he says is a hostile force acting at the behest of Venezuela’s government.

RELATED: Trump asks Supreme Court to allow birthright citizenship restrictions

"I find and declare that TdA is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States," Trump wrote in the declaration. "TdA is undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela."

The other side:

Venezuela’s government in a statement Sunday rejected the use of Trump’s declaration of the law, characterizing it as evocative of "the darkest episodes in human history, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps."

What is Tren de Aragua?

Dig deeper:

Tren de Aragua originated in an infamously lawless prison in the central state of Aragua and accompanied an exodus of millions of Venezuelans, the overwhelming majority of whom were seeking better living conditions after their nation’s economy came undone last decade. Trump seized on the gang during his campaign to paint misleading pictures of communities that he contended were "taken over" by what were actually a handful of lawbreakers.