Judge skeptical Trump's Venezuela deportation notices comply with Supreme Court ruling

By Luc Cohen

A U.S. judge expressed skepticism on Monday that the notice the Trump administration pledged to give Venezuelan migrants before deporting them under a wartime law complied with the U.S. Supreme Court's order that they be given a chance to challenge their removals in court.

U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney said during a court hearing in Denver that notices of looming deportations given to Venezuelan migrants held at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Texas made no mention of habeas corpus, which refers to the right of detainees to challenge the legality of their detention.

"You're acting as if these individuals - many of whom don't speak the language - would know there's something called habeas relief," said Sweeney, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden. "I'm looking at the notice now. It gives no indication of any right to seek any type of relief."

Sweeney said she would rule by Tuesday on whether to extend her order protecting two Venezuelan men in immigration custody in Colorado from being deported under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.

Lawyers for Venezuelan migrants are trying to persuade judges across the country to require the government to give migrants 30 days' notice before deporting them under the 1798 act, after the high court this weekend temporarily blocked the federal government from deporting a group of Venezuelans held at Bluebonnet.

Meanwhile, in a Monday filing to the Supreme Court, the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the migrants, urged the justices to maintain the block, writing that officials had not provided the migrants at Bluebonnet the required notice or opportunity to contest the removals before many were loaded on buses headed to the airport.

At the Denver hearing, Justice Department lawyer Michael Velchik said the government would give migrants notice that they were being targeted for removal under the law. Any migrant who then says they wish to challenge their removal would be given 24 hours to do so, Velchik said.

Republican President Donald Trump, who won election last November after promising to take a hard line on illegal immigration, on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act - best known for being used to intern and deport people of Japanese, German and Italian descent during World War Two - to swiftly deport hundreds of alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua outside of normal immigration procedures to a prison in El Salvador.

In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump said his team working to deport criminals was "being stymied at every turn by even the U.S. Supreme Court, which I have such great respect for, but which seemingly doesn’t want me to send violent criminals and terrorists back to Venezuela."

The administration labels Tren de Aragua a terrorist organization. Lawyers and family members of the Venezuelans deported on March 15 have denied they had ties to the gang, and said they were not given the chance to challenge the administration's assertions in court. The government has acknowledged in court papers that many of the deportees had no criminal records.

After the March 15 deportations, the Supreme Court on April 7 ordered the Trump administration to give migrants notice that they had been designated under the Alien Enemies Act and to make sure they had the chance to challenge their deportations in court.

The high court weighed in again in a 7-2 emergency ruling early on Saturday morning to block the deportations from Bluebonnet as it considered the case further.

ACLU lawyer Tim Macdonald told Sweeney on Monday that a bus carrying 28 migrants turned around en route to the Abilene, Texas, airport last week after his group challenged their pending deportations.

"That is the only thing that stopped those human beings from being disappeared into the CECOT prison in El Salvador," Macdonald said, referring to the Terrorism Confinement Center where the Venezuelans deported on March 15 are being held under an agreement with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's government.

DEMOCRATS SEEK ABREGO GARCIA'S RETURN

The Venezuelan migrants' case is one of several legal battles over Trump's immigration policies.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt, Maryland, has ordered the government to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man from El Salvador who was deported to El Salvador last month despite an order blocking him from being sent there due to the risk he would be targeted by gangs.

U.S. Representative Maxine Dexter, one of four Democrats in the House of Representatives who traveled to El Salvador on Monday to pressure the Trump administration to bring back Abrego Garcia, said the group had been denied access to him by El Salvador's government. The lawmakers asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio to give Abrego Garcia's family daily updates on his welfare, Dexter said in a phone interview.

El Salvador's government and the U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last week, Chris Van Hollen, a U.S. senator from Maryland, went to El Salvador and met with Abrego Garcia, also calling for his release.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the administration's actions in an interview on the Fox News show "Fox & Friends" on Monday.

"This was an individual who needed to be deported from our country," Leavitt said.

A State Department official said in a court filing on Sunday that Abrego Garcia had been transferred from the Terrorism Confinement Center - a mega-prison where rights groups have criticized harsh conditions - to another facility in the country, where he has his own bed and furniture.