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Inside the Urgent Fight Over the Trump Administration’s New Deportation Effort
The push to deport a group of Venezuelans raises questions about whether the government is following a Supreme Court order requiring that migrants receive due process.
—> Inside the Urgent Fight Over the Trump Administration’s New Deportation Effort“… The lack of clear information from the government about the latest deportation operation raised new questions about whether the Trump administration was trying to sidestep the Supreme Court’s previous decision, which called for any migrant removed under the wartime law to have a chance to challenge their removal.
… The group, which has sought to halt deportations under the Alien Enemies Act in cases across the country, raced to file a lawsuit on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Abilene, Texas, on behalf of two Venezuelans at the detention center.
Lawyers for the Justice Department responded by telling Judge James Wesley Hendrix — “unequivocally,” he later wrote — that the administration had no plans to deport the men.
Judge Hendrix declined to issue an order on Thursday shielding them from being removed. He also said he was not yet prepared to grant the A.C.L.U.’s request to extend protections to all the other Venezuelan migrants being held in Anson.
That evening, the A.C.L.U. received multiple calls that the notices were being handed out to immigrants at the facility, where migrants had been sent from across the country in recent days, according to Mr. Gelernt.
Last week, a judge in the Southern District of Texas had issued an order blocking the government from using the wartime power to deport people. But the Bluebonnet facility lies under the authority of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, where no such order is in effect.
The A.C.L.U. lawyers said they had emailed the government on Thursday at 6:23 p.m. Central asking whether the government had distributed notices to Venezuelans at the facility, according to a court filing from the group.
Thirteen minutes later, they said, government lawyers told them they would circle back with more information.
Instead, when Justice Department lawyers replied more than an hour later, they said only that the two migrants the A.C.L.U. was representing in court in Texas had not been given notices.
Frustrated, the A.C.L.U., responded that it was inquiring about the status of all migrants in the facility.
More than two hours later, at 8:41 p.m., the government wrote, “We are not in a position at this time to share information about unknown detainees who are not currently parties to the pending litigation.”
Inside the Bluebonnet Detention Facility, migrants were scrambling, calling their family members and warning them that it appeared the government was planning to deport them immediately. …”
[Migrants started receiving notices that they were being accused of being gang members and would be deported overnight]
