A federal judge in Colorado directed President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday to give Venezuelan migrants detained in that state notice 21 days in advance before any deportations under a law historically used only in wartime, and to inform them of their right to challenge their removal.
In a written ruling maintaining a temporary block within Colorado on deportations under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, Denver-based U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney said the administration must tell the migrants in a language they understand that they have the right to consult a lawyer.
Sweeney's decision marked the first time a judge has imposed detailed requirements on how the Trump administration can ensure due process rights under the 18th century law since the U.S. Supreme Court's April 7 order requiring migrants be given the opportunity to challenge their removals in court.
The Supreme Court in its order did not specify how much notice migrants should be given.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During a hearing on Monday, a Justice Department lawyer said that any migrant wishing to challenge removal under the Alien Enemies Act would be given 24 hours to do so.
The deportations are part of the Republican president's hardline approach toward immigration since he returned to office in January.
The American Civil Liberties Union, representing the migrants held in Colorado, had asked Sweeney to require the administration to provide notice 30 days in advance. That timetable was in line with the procedure that the U.S. government used the last time the Alien Enemies Act was invoked, during World War Two, to intern and deport people of Japanese, German and Italian descent.
The law authorizes the president to deport, detain or place restrictions on individuals whose primary allegiance is to a foreign power and who might pose a national security risk in wartime.
In her decision, Sweeney wrote that the ACLU was likely correct that the Alien Enemies Act was inapplicable because Tren de Aragua's presence in the United States did not amount to an act of war.
"The court properly recognized that this wartime authority cannot be used during peacetime and that the government is not complying with due process," Lee Gelernt, the lead ACLU lawyer in the case, said in a statement.
On Saturday, the Supreme Court weighed in again, blocking what advocates said was the imminent removal of dozens of Venezuelans held in Texas without due process.
Trump was elected to a second term as president last November after a campaign in which he promised to step up deportations. In a social media post on Monday, Trump said the government "cannot give everyone a trial" before deporting them.
"We would need hundreds of thousands of trials for the hundreds of thousands of Illegals we are sending out of the Country," Trump wrote. "Such a thing is not possible to do."
Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act in a bid to swiftly deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which his administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization, outside normal immigration proceedings.
Relatives of many of the hundreds of deported Venezuelans and their lawyers have denied that they are Tren de Aragua members and have said they were never given the chance to contest the administration's allegations of gang affiliation.
ABREGO GARCIA CASE
In a separate case, the Trump administration was accused of violating a judge's order to provide information about its efforts to facilitate the return to the United States of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who lived in Maryland, according to a court filing made public on Tuesday.
The administration has acknowledged that Abrego Garcia was deported in error to El Salvador last month.
Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis last week ordered the administration to provide documents and answer questions by the end of Monday about its efforts to comply with a court order to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return.
"The government responded to plaintiffs' discovery requests by producing nothing of substance," Abrego Garcia's lawyers wrote in the court filing.
They asked the judge to hold a hearing as soon as possible to discuss the government's failure to comply with her discovery order.
The Trump administration said in the same joint filing it made a good-faith effort to comply with the demands for documents and to answer questions from Abrego Garcia's legal team.
