US court pauses ruling allowing Venezuelans to challenge deportations to El Salvador

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By Luc Cohen and Nate Raymond

(Reuters) -A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday temporarily paused a judge’s ruling holding that hundreds of Venezuelans the Trump administration deported to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law must be given the chance to challenge their detentions.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an administrative stay to give itself more time to consider an appeal filed by the government earlier on Tuesday.

Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on June 4 also ruled that the Trump administration must facilitate their legal challenges, though he stopped short of expressly ordering the government to bring the Venezuelan migrants currently being held at a mega-prison in El Salvador back to the U.S.

Boasberg, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, gave the government one week to detail how it would facilitate the deportees’ challenges, known as habeas corpus petitions.

The Venezuelans were deported in March after President Donald Trump, a Republican, invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang without going through normal immigration procedures.

The appellate court panel that paused Boasberg’s ruling included U.S. Circuit Judges Gregory Katsas, Neomi Rao and Justin Walker, all of whom were appointed to the court by Trump during his first term in office.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the Venezuelans in the case, did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York and Nate Raymond in Boston)