Federal Judge Says Trump Misapplied Wartime Law for Venezuelan Deportations

In a different case this past week, a judge in Texas also ruled that the administration improperly applied the Alien Enemies Act.

President Donald Trump takes a question from a reporter in the Oval Office at the White House on May 5, 2025. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

A federal judge in New York has blocked the government from deporting suspected Venezuelan gang members, holding that the Trump administration improperly invoked an 18th-century law and failed to provide due process for deportees.

Issued on May 6, the order is the second preliminary injunction issued by a federal judge in less than a week. Challenges to the deportations have been ongoing, with several more temporary orders, including from the Supreme Court, blocking a proclamation President Donald Trump signed in March.

Both U.S. District Judges Alvin Hellerstein, who issued the May 6 opinion, and Fernando Rodriguez Jr., who issued his order on May 1, said in their orders that Trump was wrong to claim that the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang was engaging in an “invasion” as outlined by the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

Trump invoked that law in March, stating that the TdA gang members had infiltrated the Venezuelan regime and invaded the United States, justifying their expedited removal.

“Evidence irrefutably demonstrates that TdA has invaded the United States and continues to invade, attempt to invade, and threaten to invade the country; perpetrated irregular warfare within the country; and used drug trafficking as a weapon against our citizens,” his March 15 proclamation read.

Hellerstein disagreed and said that TdA members “do not seek to occupy territory, to oust American jurisdiction from any territory, or to ravage territory.”

“TdA may well be engaged in narcotics trafficking, but that is a criminal matter, not an invasion or predatory incursion,” he said.

Hellerstein was overseeing just one of many cases brought across the country in which individuals challenged Trump’s proclamation and sought to block deportations. In April, the Supreme Court intervened twice without offering any ruling as to whether the administration had properly invoked the Alien Enemies Act.

Instead, it halted some deportations in a brief order on April 19 and told the administration on April 7 that it must provide suspected gang members with notice that they are subject to removal, as well as an opportunity to challenge their detention. It specified that “the notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief,” which is a legal avenue for challenging one’s detention.

Although Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) provided detainees with notice, Hellerstein said it was insufficient. Referring to one issued in Texas, he said, “the notice is a fleeting affair, for if the alien fails to express an intent to file a petition for habeas relief within a dozen hours of being served ... or to actually file a petition within another 24-hour period, ICE may ‘proceed with removal.’”

He was quoting a declaration from an ICE assistant field director in Texas, who described how authorities were processing detainees.

Assistant Field Office Director Carlos Cisneros said in his declaration that ICE generally would not remove individuals under the Alien Enemies Act if they had a pending habeas petition.

The administration has repeatedly accused judges of exceeding their authority in halting these deportations. Justice Samuel Alito, who dissented from his colleagues’ April 19 block on some deportations, similarly suggested that his fellow justices had overstepped and acted too quickly in multiple ways.

The ultimate outcome of that case, which originated in the Northern District of Texas, is pending.

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer has urged the justices not to grant additional relief, telling them that the Venezuelan nationals in that case were asking for “extraordinary” relief. He said that detainees receiving notice “have had adequate time to file habeas claims.”