Another judge has blocked Donald Trump’s deportations under a 200-year-old wartime law, which the president has wielded to carry out his campaign to rid America of undocumented immigrants.
Senior U.S. District Judge David Briones, of the border city El Paso, has halted west Texas deportations under the Alien Enemies Act and ordered the release of a couple accused of being part of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, according to the Associated Press.
“There is no doubt the Executive Branch’s unprecedented peacetime use of wartime power has caused chaos and uncertainty for individual petitions as well as the judicial branch in how to manage and evaluate the Executive’s claims of Tren de Aragua membership, and the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act as a whole,” wrote Briones, a nominee of former President Bill Clinton, in his ruling.
Briones’ ruling follows similar orders from courts in south Texas, Colorado, and New York—as well as that of Chief Judge James Boasberg, whose ruling Trump defied in March, kicking off a dire feud between the two men, which could see the president held in criminal contempt.
Trump has used the 1798 law, which was passed by John Adams, to deport without due process hundreds of accused gang members to a mega-prison in El Salvador.
The couple whose release Briones demanded are Julio Cesar Sanchez Puentes and Luddis Norelia Sanchez Garcia. They were arrested after their temporary legal status was terminated on April 1.
They were taken into custody at the El Paso airport while attempting to return home to Washington, D.C., where they live with their three children.
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