A Donald Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas ruled that the president unlawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act and blocked the administration from quickly deporting some alleged members of a Venezuelan gang.
US District Judge Fernando Rodriguez of the Southern District of Texas said Trump had unlawfully invoked the sweeping 18th Century wartime authority to speed up some deportations. His decision means Trump cannot rely on the law to detain or deport any alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua within his district.
The ruling is a significant blow to Trump’s decision in March to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, which has faced numerous legal challenges and has been halted by several courts. But Rodriguez’s ruling is the first to conclude that the president exceeded his authority by relying on a law that was intended to be used during times when the US is at war.
The Trump administration, Rodriguez wrote, does “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.”
“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.”
Although Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act has been litigated in multiple courts nationwide, including the Supreme Court, Rodriguez is the first judge to have reached a final decision on the merits.
“The importance of this ruling cannot be overstated,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who helped bring the legal challenge.
“This is the first court to squarely rule on the fundamental question of whether a wartime authority can be used during peacetime and properly concluded it can not,” Gelernt said.
The Venezuelans suing had narrowly avoided being sent to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act when two flights took migrants to the country’s notorious CECOT prison in March.
They were continuing to sue so that the administration wouldn’t try again to deport them under the Alien Enemies Act. The judge says other immigration laws governing deportations could still be used, and the men are still being held in a facility in south Texas.
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