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The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to resume the deportations of nearly 200 Venezuelan migrants detained in Texas, requesting that the court lift its order from last month that temporarily paused the deportation of migrants subject to the Alien Enemies Act. In a new court filing, Solicitor General John Sauer said that some of the 176 detained migrants allegedly associated with the Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua, a US-designated foreign terrorist organization, have “proven to be especially dangerous to maintain in prolonged detention.” According to the filing, a field officer from the Department of Homeland Security described a recent incident where 23 of the detained migrants “barricaded themselves in a housing unit for several hours and threatened to take hostages and harm ICE officers.” CNN reached out to the detainees’ attorney for comment. The incident took place at Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, the filing said, where a drone recently captured an aerial view of detainees sending an “SOS” message. The detainees involved in the alleged barricading incident were relocated to another facility in Texas, according to the filing. “Transferring such prisoners to other facilities, moreover, creates ongoing risks of prison recruitment and expansion of Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang activities within the United States,” Sauer wrote, arguing that the group should “promptly” be removed from the country. The filing comes less than a month after the Supreme Court issued a rare overnight order that temporarily barred the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to speed up deportations. Less than two weeks prior, the high court temporarily greenlit the administration’s use of the act but said that those subject to it must be given adequate notice so they can challenge their removals under the 18th century law. The White House has alleged that the people it has deported under the act are dangerous members of Tren de Aragua, but has provided limited evidence proving as much. Government lawyers have cited tattoos on immigrants or clothing linked to gangs in court papers to allege criminality. Multiple federal judges at lower levels have since also blocked the administration from carrying out deportations under it.
