By Luc Cohen and Kristina Cooke
(Reuters) -Lawyers for Venezuelan men detained in Texas asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to block what the lawyers said were the men’s imminent deportation by the Trump administration without the judicial review required by the Supreme Court.
The case raises questions about the Trump administration’s adherence to limits set by the Supreme Court. It carries the potential for a significant clash between the two coequal branches of government and possibly even a full-blown constitutional crisis.
In a court filing, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union said dozens of the men held at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, were handed forms indicating they were classified as members of the Tren de Aragua gang and would be deported.
The lawyers filed with the Supreme Court after failing to get a rapid response from earlier filings on Friday before U.S. District Judge James Hendrix in Abilene, Texas, and the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to block any such deportations.
The ACLU said a number of them had already been loaded on a bus and was pressuring the courts to rule before they could be deported.
At issue is whether the Trump administration has fulfilled the Supreme Court’s standard for providing the detainees due process before shipping them off to another country – possibly to the notorious prison in El Salvador where others have been taken.
It was unclear on Friday how many people were potentially to be deported, and where they might be taken.
The men’s deportation would be the first since the U.S. Supreme Court told President Donald Trump’s administration on April 7 that it must provide notice to Venezuelan migrants it is seeking to deport under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act and give them the opportunity to challenge their deportations in court.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York and Kristina Cooke in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Howard Goller, Noeleen Walder and Daniel Wallis)
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