The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to use a 1798 wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport Venezuelan migrants it accuses of being gang members, ending the temporary halt on deportations ordered by a federal district judge.

A Texas judge blocked deportations of anyone held in a South Texas detention facility who may be removed under the wartime law and a New York judge planned a similar order in part of that state.

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.

Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday allowed President Donald Trump to temporarily remove two board members at independent labor agencies while the justices consider whether the president may permanently fire them.

The legislation is part of an escalating Republican campaign to take aim at judges who have moved to halt some of President Trump’s executive orders.

A federal judge said she will block President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday from revoking the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans in the United States.

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.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit sided with the government to block a lower-court ruling that had led to the reinstatement of thousands of federal workers.

U.S. judges in Texas and New York dealt blows on Wednesday to President Donald Trump's effort to revive deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members under a wartime law after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a nationwide ban on such removals.