The ACLU asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether the Trump administration can lawfully invoke the Alien Enemies Act for deportations.

Justice Samuel Alito has written a sharp dissent that castigates the seven-member majority for blocking the Trump administration from deporting any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under an 18th-century wartime law.

The US Supreme Court has temporarily barred Donald Trump from using a rarely-used law dating back to the 18th century to deport a group of Venezuelan migrants The country’s highest court said in the early hours of Saturday that the government was “directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until a further order of this court”.