A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from using an 18th-century law to deport suspected Venezuelan gangbangers in South Texas, ruling that the president’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act is “unlawful.”
In the most forceful ruling against the administration’s use of the 1798 law to date, District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, an appointee of President Trump, issued a permanent injunction against the application of the statute on migrants detained in the Southern District of Texas.
The Trump administration’s utilization of the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport alleged members of Tren de Aragua – a vicious Venezuelan prison gang – to an El Salvador megaprison exceeded the scope of the wartime law, the judge ruled in a 36-page opinion.
“The President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful,” Rodriguez wrote.
The Brownsville-based judge ruled that Tren de Aragua’s activities in the US, which boomed under the Biden administration, fell short of amounting to an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” as Trump proclaimed in mid-March when he invoked the act.
“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 law does not support such a position,” wrote Rodriguez.
Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act has been litigated in several courts, including the Supreme Court, but Rodriguez is the first judge to permanently block it on the merits.
The White House slammed the ruling and said it believes Trump will “ultimately prevail” in his effort to rapidly deport Venezuelan gangbangers.
“The Southern District of Texas’s ruling is undoubtedly shocking to the over 77 million Americans who gave President Trump a decisive Election Day mandate to enforce our immigration laws and deport terrorist illegal aliens — and yet time and again we see federal courts try to stop the President from exercising his lawful authorities to protect the American people,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.
“The Trump administration is committed to unapologetically using every lever of power endowed to the executive branch by the Constitution and Congress to deliver on this mandate, and we are confident that we will ultimately prevail for the American people,” Desai added.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit to halt the migrant removals, celebrated the ruling.
“The court ruled the president can’t unilaterally declare an invasion of the United States and invoke a wartime authority during peacetime. Congress never meant for this 18th-century wartime law to be used this way. This is a critically important decision that prevents more people from being sent to the notorious CECOT prison,” ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said in a statement.
Since the law was invoked on March 15, at least 137 alleged Venezuelan gang members have been deported to El Salvador from the El Valle Detention Center in Raymondville, Texas – which is within the bounds of the permanent injunction, according to Reuters.
Trump designated Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization early in his second term.
