A federal judge on Saturday temporarily thwarted President Donald Trump’s efforts to use the alien enemy law of 1798 to accused suspected members of the Venezuelan gang of “illegally penetrating” them. He also ordered deportation flights carrying subjects of the Presidential Declaration to return to the United States.
Trump on Saturday evoked rarely used wartime authority, accusing Venezuelan gangster Tren de Lagua of “invading” Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s administration, including “military and law enforcement.” It perpetuates “irregular wars” within the United States, using drug trafficking as a weapon against American citizens.
Hours before the White House issued its Trump declaration, the American Civil Liberties Union and the democratic forward filed a lawsuit accusing the White House of preparing to push five Venezuelan men out of the alien enemy law and bore them.
Supreme Court Judge James E. Boasberg of the DC District Court was the first to issue a temporary restraining order that would prevent the Trump administration from deporting five Venezuelans named in the lawsuit for at least 14 days.
Boasberg has now expanded its decision to apply to “all non-citizens of US custody” subject to Trump’s declaration.
The Justice Department plans to appeal the expanded decision, according to familiar sources.
The judgment means all Venezuelan citizens over the age of 14 who are currently members of Tren de Aragua in the country and are not naturalized or legal permanent residents of the United States.
“A plane that includes these people who take off or are in the air will need to be returned to the US,” the judge said. “These people need to be returned to the US.”
The judge’s ruling does not apply to individuals who have already been ordered to leave the country for reasons other than the calling of Trump’s alien enemies, nor does it include individuals who have already landed and disembarked in foreign countries. The judge said that when those individuals are outside the plane and on the ground abroad, they are no longer in the court’s jurisdiction.
The judge scheduled another hearing on Friday, March 21st for further discussion.
“Today was a horrifying day in the history of the country, when the President made public that he was trying to assert virtually unlimited authority to evoke extraordinary wartime power without war or aggression and to remove people from the country.” “But tonight the rule of law has won. The government is forced to turn the planes around, and our lawsuit – filed very early this morning – has provided extensive relief.”
During a hearing on Saturday afternoon, the judge was assured by a Justice Department lawyer that five Venezuelans had been ordered to remain in the country.
The lawyer for a nonprofit challenging Trump’s order told the judge he knew of the flight that took off from Texas along with other Venezuelans heading to both Honduras and El Salvador.
20 states and the District of Columbia announced lawsuits against the Trump administration over mass shootings at the Department of Education on Thursday.
The judge warned the government that it must comply with the court’s orders.
“This is something that needs to be followed immediately,” Boasberg said. “These people will be sent to Salvadolian and Honduras prisons that do not accept Venezuelans so badly.”
A source familiar with deportation flights told NBC News that the Venezuelans had two flights on board today and were spinning according to the judge’s orders.
The Alien Enemy Act of 1798 allows the president to quickly detain and expel immigrants from “hostile” countries when the era of “declared war” or when foreign governments perpetuate “invasion” or “predatory invasion” of the United States. Only Congress has the constitutional power to declare war.
“For many years, Venezuela’s national and local governments have given away more and more superior control over their territory to cross-border criminal organizations, including the TDA. [Tren De Aragua],” I read Trump’s declaration. “The consequence is a hybrid criminal nation committed invasions and predatory invasions of the United States, poses a great danger to the United States.”
Legal experts challenge Trump’s interpretation of alien enemy law, claiming it was designed to be used only in the age of war, and calling immigrants to deport them could be illegal.
Ilya Somin, a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, wrote earlier this year that “illegal migration and cross-border drug crowding are not qualified as “invasions” and certainly not as an invasion by “hostile countries or governments.”
According to an analysis of the law by the Brennan Center for Justice, “Alien Enemy Law allows for the arrest, restraining, ensuring and eliminating non-citizens, and explicitly grants the President the authority to decide when and how to do it.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization last month after Trump signed an executive order that created the process for him to do so.
Trump has been engaged in a “campaign of violence and fear” and accused the United States of “dirtier drugs, violent criminals and vicious gangs.” Similarly, Trump has instructed federal officials to “preparation for operational” to “enforce” the alien enemy laws.
Trump’s call to alien enemy law fulfills the pledge he made in the campaign trajectory and uses the law to target suspicious gang members, drug dealers and cartel members.
“I immediately summoned alien enemies to remove known or suspected gang members, drug dealers, and US cartel members, and end the tragedy of illegal alien gang violence.”
Trump was the first president of almost a century, calling for alien enemy laws and doing so first outside of major military conflicts. It was last called in 1941 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the law to target people of Japanese, German and Italian descent during World War II.
Democrats have long tried to abolish the alien enemy law. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-min. , and Sen. Mazie Hirono of D-Hawaii, introduced the law in January to do so.
“Old-fashioned laws cannot continue to enable discriminatory practices that harm immigrant communities,” Omar said in a January statement.
Sarah Dean, Lawrence Hurley and Julia Ainsley contributed.
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