Judge bars deportations of Venezuelans from South Texas under 18th-century wartime law

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI Associated Press A federal judge on Thursday barred the Trump administration from deporting any Venezuelans from South Texas under an th-century wartime law and declared President Donald Trump s invocation of it was unlawful U S District Court Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr is the first judge to rule that the Alien Enemies Act cannot be used against people who the Republican administration asserts are gang members invading the United States Neither the Court nor the parties question that the Executive Branch can direct the detention and removal of aliens who engage in criminal activity in the United States wrote Rodriguez who was nominated by Trump in But the judge commented the President s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain ordinary meaning of the statute s terms Related Articles The Justice Department ended a decades-old school desegregation order Others are expected to fall Cheap parcels from China will no longer be duty-free Here s what it means for buyers and sellers Musk defends his work as he prepares to wind down at DOGE but gives hazy answers on future Trump national defense adviser Waltz is out in a major staff shake-up after his Signal chat blunder Rubio calls India and Pakistan in effort to defuse emergency over Kashmir attack In March Trump issued a proclamation claiming that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was invading the U S He mentioned he had special powers to deport immigrants identified by his administration as gang members without the usual court proceedings The Court concludes that the President s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and as a conclusion is unlawful Rodriguez wrote The Alien Enemies Act has only been used three times before in U S history most of in recent times during World War II when it was cited to intern Japanese-Americans The proclamation triggered a flurry of litigation as the administration tried to ship settlers it claimed were gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador Rodriguez s ruling is crucial because it is the first formal permanent injunction against the administration using the AEA and contends the president is misusing the law Congress never meant for this law to be used in this manner commented Lee Gelernt the ACLU lawyer who argued the matter in response to the ruling Rodriguez agreed noting that the provision has only been used during the two World Wars and the War of Trump claimed Tren de Aragua was acting at the behest of the Venezuelan executive but Rodriguez revealed that the programs the administration accused it of did not amount to an invasion or predatory incursion as the statute requires The Proclamation makes no reference to and in no manner suggests that a threat exists of an organized armed group of individuals entering the United States at the direction of Venezuela to conquer the country or assume control over a portion of the nation Rodriguez wrote Thus the Proclamation s language cannot be read as describing conduct that falls within the meaning of invasion for purposes of the AEA If the administration appeals it would go first to the New Orleans-based th U S Circuit Court of Appeals That is among the nation s majority conservative appeals courts and it also has ruled against what it saw as overreach on immigration matters by both the Obama and Biden administrations In those cases Democratic administrations had sought to make it easier for immigrants to remain in the U S The administration as it has in other cases challenging its expansive view of presidential power could turn to appellate courts including the U S Supreme Court in the form of an emergency motion for a stay pending an appeal The Supreme Court already has weighed in once on the issue of deportations under the AEA The justices held that asylum seekers alleged to be gang members must be given reasonable time to contest their removal from the country The court has not specified the length of time It s doable that the losing side in the th Circuit would file an crisis appeal with the justices that also would ask them to short-circuit lower court action in favor of a definitive ruling from the nation s highest court Such a decision likely would be months away at least The Texas matter is just one piece of a tangle of litigation sparked by Trump s proclamation The ACLU initially filed suit in the nation s capital to block deportations U S District Judge James E Boasberg issued a temporary hold on removals and ordered the administration turn around planes that had left with detainees headed to El Salvador a directive that was apparently ignored Later the Supreme Court weighed in The justices stepped in again late last month with an exceptional postmidnight order halting deportations from North Texas where the ACLU contended the administration was preparing for another round of flights to El Salvador Riccardi released from Denver Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst and Mark Sherman contributed to this review