SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
President Trump has taken a sweeping approach to immigration policy. His goal is to speed up the rate of arrests and deportations, but that goal is encountering obstacles in the U.S. Supreme Court. NPR immigration reporter Ximena Bustillo has been covering it and joins us in our studios. Ximena, thanks so much for being with us.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Good morning.
SIMON: Yesterday, the court issued its latest order on Trump's immigration policies. This is related to the Alien Enemies Act. What did they say?
BUSTILLO: The Supreme Court issued a preliminary injunction which extends the pause on deportations of Venezuelan immigrants in North Texas via the use of the Alien Enemies Act. Earlier this year, Trump invoked that rarely used wartime power in order to streamline deportations, but the Supreme Court had already ruled that the government has to give immigrants a chance to contest their deportations under this act. Lawyers on behalf of Venezuelans held at a Texas detention facility moved to quickly stop their clients' removals when they learned that they had only received hours' notice that they were about to be removed using the Alien Enemies Act.
The Supreme Court said in its Friday order that it meant to preserve its jurisdiction over the case while letting lower courts decide just how much notice should be given to people the government wants to quickly remove using this power. But the court did not directly address the larger question of whether Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act at all was legal.
SIMON: The Trump administration has criticized federal judges who've taken steps to block its policies. The president's even called for their impeachment. How did he respond to this latest order?
BUSTILLO: In a post to his social media site, Truth Social, Trump said, quote, "the Supreme Court will not allow us to get criminals out of our country," end quote. And one of the biggest, strongest rebukes of the Supreme Court specifically, Trump explicitly said that he believes that the court is not allowing him to do what he was elected to do on immigration. He complained that the court is forcing his administration to go through what he called a long, protracted and expensive legal process to deport migrants in the country. But the decision from the Supreme Court shows that they think it's not that simple. The justices point out that once detainees are placed into custody of another government, officials tell the court that the courts can't provide any relief if there are errors.
SIMON: Justices also heard arguments related to questions about birthright citizenship. How did these play out?
BUSTILLO: On his first day in office, you might remember Trump issued an executive order to reinterpret the 14th Amendment, stating that being born in the U.S. does not guarantee automatic citizenship if your parents do not have legal status or are here on a temporary basis. Most of the Supreme Court arguments focused on whether judges should be allowed to issue universal injunctions and broadly stop a president's policies. But the bigger stakes of Trump's immigration plans are not lost on the court. During oral arguments, conservative Brett Kavanaugh really questioned DOJ attorneys over exactly how the government was supposed to manage and oversee babies born without citizenship in the U.S., and government lawyers said they didn't know.
SIMON: Elsewhere, Ximena, the White House is putting off complying with the orders of two federal judges on big immigration cases. One of those judges again took the administration to task yesterday. Please, tell us.
BUSTILLO: Well, Maryland federal Judge Paula Xinis increasingly is growing exasperated by the government's efforts to not provide information on whether it is facilitating the release and return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Abrego Garcia is a man who lived in Maryland and was deported to El Salvador by error, and the administration has said that this was an administrative error. Xinis has asked the government to explain exactly what steps it has taken, but she says that the government continues to stonewall in, quote, "bad faith." And it's been more than a month since even the Supreme Court agreed with Xinis that the government needs to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return.
In a hearing also on Friday, the - a judge - a Justice Department lawyer tried invoking a state secrets privilege to withhold information on these steps, but Judge Xinis is skeptical of that argument, saying she simply just hasn't been given enough information to determine whether the government's efforts to free Abrego Garcia from El Salvador should be covered by national security concerns.
SIMON: NPR's Ximena Bustillo. Thanks so much.
BUSTILLO: Thanks, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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