STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Around midnight Friday, which is to say, actually very early Saturday morning, the Supreme Court ordered that some Venezuelan migrants should not be deported from the United States, for now at least, under the Alien Enemies Act. There have been dissents to this, replies to this, so much to catch up on, and Amy Howe is here to help us. She's a Supreme Court reporter and cofounder of SCOTUSBlog. Welcome to the program.
AMY HOWE: Good morning. Thanks for having me.
INSKEEP: OK, for starters, this is a temporary order by the Supreme Court, right?
HOWE: Yes, temporary in the sense that the Supreme Court, when it issued this order very early on Saturday morning, said the government shouldn't remove anyone from this portion of northern Texas until we say otherwise. So who knows how long it will last.
INSKEEP: And this portion of northern Texas, we're talking about how many migrants here?
HOWE: It's hard to say. You know, their lawyers say, you know, dozens or hundreds. It's hard to say exactly how many are covered, including because one of the allegations that the detainees' lawyers make is that the government has been moving these detainees around the country to this facility. So it's a little hard to say.
INSKEEP: You get an impression from the Supreme Court order that they don't entirely trust the Trump administration here. They're saying, wait a minute, don't do anything. Don't act hastily. Remember our previous order that you need to give people a reasonable chance to contest their status under the Alien Enemies Act.
HOWE: I think that's right, and I think that's what this order reflects - the fact that it was issued so quickly without waiting for the lower courts to rule, without giving the government a chance to reply and in the middle of the night and saying, you know, until further notice from this court, don't take anyone out of the country from this part of Texas.
INSKEEP: You have effectively just summarized the dissent of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote several pages saying, wait a minute, you didn't wait for the lower courts. This is premature - it's maybe not even lawful - I don't like this at all. So Alito is out there, but the order is in effect. And now the migrants' lawyers have spoken up this morning. What are you hearing?
HOWE: Yeah, so the migrants' lawyers filed a reply that I received shortly before 5:30 this morning. And they say this wasn't a false alarm. You know, they say that, you know, NBC News has reports, in fact, that migrants were on buses headed to the airport, and those buses turned around after we filed. And so they said, you know, unless the Supreme Court says more about exactly - not just that our clients need to have notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal, but says, you know, exactly what that notice needs to consist of, if the Supreme Court doesn't provide guidance, we're going to need to do this over and over again. And so we need you to provide notice, keep the injunction in place and maybe even consider taking up the broader issue about whether or not President Trump can rely on this Alien Enemies Act, this 1798 law that's only been invoked three times before to remove people.
INSKEEP: Amy, thanks very much for the insights. Really appreciate it.
HOWE: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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