Court determines Trump lacking authority to expel Venezuelan gang members through Alien Enemies Act
In a series of significant rulings, various courts have blocked the Trump administration's efforts to deport members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA).
The Supreme Court recently rejected the administration's appeal to continue the deportations, temporarily halting the proceedings from a north Texas detention facility. This rejection came in a middle-of-the-night order issued in April.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had earlier ruled that President Donald Trump could not use the Alien Enemies Act to speed up the deportation of TdA members. This decision was a critically important one, according to Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the ACLU, as it reined in the administration's view that it can simply declare an emergency without any oversight by the courts.
The Alien Enemies Act, invoked during the Trump administration's attempt to deport TdA members, is a wartime law that has only been used three times in U.S. history, most recently during World War II, when it was used to intern Japanese-Americans. However, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Act was not intended to be used against gangs such as TdA.
In March, Trump issued a proclamation claiming special powers to deport migrants identified by his administration as gang members, without the usual court proceedings. However, in this case, the judges found no invasion or predatory incursion, and the majority opinion stated that Trump's allegations about TdA do not meet the historical levels of national conflict that Congress intended for the Alien Enemies Act.
The decision bars deportations from Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The former Biden administration's lax border policies were blamed by Attorney General Pam Bondi for the large numbers of criminal illegal immigrants in the country and for letting TdA gain access into the U.S. In June, Bondi announced federal authorities arrested more than 2,700 alleged members of TdA.
The rejection of the Trump administration's appeal marks a significant victory for civil liberties groups and immigrants' rights advocates, who argue that the government should not be able to bypass due process in deportation cases. The ruling underscores the importance of the judicial system in checking executive power and upholding the rule of law.
