Trump urges justices to reject deportation pause

WASHINGTON: Trump administration lawyers urged the Supreme Court in a court filing Saturday afternoon to reject an emergency request to temporarily block deportations of Venezuelans under a rarely invoked 18th-century wartime law.

- 

Solicitor General D John Sauer asked the justices to "dissolve" the administrative stay they had issued early Saturday that blocked the deportations while they considered the application and to allow lower courts to weigh in before intervening further in the case.

The deportations remain paused while the justices consider the matter. In emergency applications, the Supreme Court can act at any time. In his filing, Mr Sauer called the request by lawyers for the migrants that the justices step in "fatally premature" and argued that they had "improperly skipped over the lower courts."

He said that the government had provided advance notice to detainees subject to imminent deportation and that they "have had adequate time to file" claims challenging their removal. Sauer added that the government had agreed it would not deport any detainees with pending claims.