President Donald Trump had a meltdown Saturday after a federal judge banned him from using a centuries-old wartime act to deport men without due process.
“Can it be so that Judges aren’t allowing the USA to Deport Criminals, including Murderers, out of our Country and back to where they came from?” Trump posted on Truth Social Saturday. “If this is so, our Country, as we know it, is finished!”
The president’s temper tantrum comes less than two days after U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., whom Trump appointed during his first term, struck down his use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to expel hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador. The administration had argued that the law—which was last used during World War II to justify carting Japanese-Americans off to internment camps—allowed it to deport migrants without due process because the country is at war with gangs and drug cartels.
“Americans will have to get used to a very different, crime filled, LIFE,” Trump added. “This is not what our Founders had in mind!!!”
Rodriguez said in a ruling Thursday that the law can only be used during wartime and when an “organized, armed force” is coming into the United States.
“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,” he wrote.
“Thus, the Proclamation’s language cannot be read as describing conduct that falls within the meaning of ‘invasion’ for purposes of the AEA,” he added.
Trump has been on a tear against judges who have defied him, calling for their impeachment over rulings he disagrees with. When D.C. Judge James Boasberg first ruled that the administration could not deport suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang in March, ordering the Department of Justice to ground planes filled with migrants set to take off for El Salvador, Trump labelled him a “radical left lunatic.”
On Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned of “relentless attacks” on judges and an environment of harassment that “ultimately risks undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.”
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