The hearings marked the first legal challenges to the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members since the Supreme Court lifted a nationwide block.

Federal judges in New York and Texas on Wednesday issued orders to temporarily halt the deportation of Venezuelan plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act – a wartime authority the administration has invoked to deport alleged gang members without due process.

Judges in Texas and New York on Wednesday temporarily barred the U.S. government from deporting Venezuelans jailed in parts of those two states while their lawyers challenge the Trump administration’s use of a rarely invoked law letting presidents imprison noncitizens or expel them from the country in times of war.