Less than two weeks after the Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump to use a controversial 18th century wartime authority to speed deportations, the issue has rocketed back to the justices in a second short-fuse appeal with enormous potential consequences.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented. A group of Venezuelan migrants had been scheduled to be flown out of the country under the little-used wartime statute, according to people familiar with the matter.

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”.