A federal judge on May 1 ruled that President Donald Trump’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members is unlawful, and barred the government from deporting alleged gang members in southern Texas.
“The Court concludes that the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful,” he wrote. “Respondents do not possess the lawful authority under the AEA, and based on the Proclamation, to detain Venezuelan aliens, transfer them within the United States, or remove them from the country.”
Rodriguez’s order means that the Trump administration cannot use the law to deport or detain alleged members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, in the Southern District of Texas.
“Allowing the President to unilaterally define the conditions when he may invoke the AEA, and then summarily declare that those conditions exist, would remove all limitations to the Executive Branch’s authority under the AEA, and would strip the courts of their traditional role of interpreting Congressional statutes to determine whether a government official has exceeded the statute’s scope,” the judge wrote. “The law does not support such a position.”
The order appears to be the first one issued by a judge that explicitly rules that Trump’s use of the 18th-century law to deport Venezuelan nationals accused of being Tren de Aragua members is unlawful. Other courts have not issued orders on the merits of Trump’s proclamation.
The proclamation triggered a flurry of litigation as the Trump administration tried to send illegal immigrants it determined to be gang members to a large prison in El Salvador.
Rodriguez noted that the AEA has been used only during World War I, World War II, and the War of 1812. Trump said Tren de Aragua was acting at the behest of the Venezuelan government, but Rodriguez found that the activities that the Trump administration accused the gang 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,” the judge wrote.
“Thus, the Proclamation’s language cannot be read as describing conduct that falls within the meaning of ‘invasion’ for purposes of the AEA.”
In April, the Supreme Court held that illegal immigrants who are accused of being gang members have to be given “reasonable time” to petition their deportation from the United States, although it did not specify how long that could take.
Later, the high court issued an order to bar deportations of Venezuelan illegal immigrants held in a northern Texas facility under the AEA.
“The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court,” the Supreme Court said in an unsigned order.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, with Alito saying that the order was issued in what he characterized as an unusual manner.
