The ACLU and Democracy Forward filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to speed along deportations of Venezuelan nationals.
A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s efforts to rapidly deport members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua through use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
On Saturday, Trump issued a presidential proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act specifically to speed along the deportations of all Venezuelan nationals who are 14 years old or older, who are members of Tren de Aragua, and who are not citizens or lawful permanent residents of the United States.
Hours before Trump issued his proclamation, lawyers for five Venezuelan detainees being processed for deportation from the United States filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the president’s deportation practice. In response, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, issued an order barring the deportation of those five plaintiffs identified in the lawsuit for at least the next two weeks, as the legal proceedings continue.
Later on Saturday evening, Boasberg returned with a second order, granting a class action certification to all noncitizens who would otherwise be subject to Trump’s presidential proclamation.
The complaint, filed with support from the ACLU and Democracy Forward, challenges the legality of Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. In particular, the lawsuit notes the 1798 law has only ever been invoked on three prior occasions: during the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II.
The plaintiffs asserted the Alien Enemies Act “plainly only applies to warlike actions.”
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“It cannot be used here against nationals of a country—Venezuela—with whom the United States is not at war, which is not invading the United States, and which has not launched a predatory incursion into the United States,” the complaint reads.
Trump’s proclamation says the Venezuelan government has gradually ceded more and more of its authorities to terrorist group Tren de Aragua and other similar transnational criminal organizations, resulting in what the proclamation referred to as a “hybrid criminal state.”
“Evidence irrefutably demonstrates that TdA has invaded the United States and continues to invade, attempt to invade, and threaten to invade the country; perpetrated irregular warfare within the country; and used drug trafficking as a weapon against our citizens,” Trump’s proclamation states.
As part of this effort to speed along deportations of Tren de Aragua suspects, the Trump administration had also reached an agreement to pay the government of El Salvador some $6 million to imprison 300 Tren de Aragua suspects and two more individuals suspected of ties to the Salvadoran transnational gang MS-13.
“I do not believe I can wait any longer and am required to act,” Boasberg said as he presided over the Saturday evening hearing.
“A brief delay in their removal does not cause the government any harm,” he added.
Boasberg also ordered any deportation planes that were already in the air to turn around.
The Trump administration now has until March 17 to file a motion to vacate the temporary restraining order placed on its deportation effort. The plaintiffs will then have until March 19 to file a response.
After Boasberg initially blocked deportation actions against the first five plaintiffs, the Department of Justice argued that allowing such a ruling to stand would suggest any district court “would have license to enjoin virtually any urgent national-security action just upon receipt of a complaint.”
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign argued that the president has broad authority to identify and act on threats under the Alien Enemies Act. Ensign noted a 1948 U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the court found that the 1798 law allowed for the detainment of a German citizen even after the hostilities of World War II had ended.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
