A federal judge in Texas and Houston decided that Donald Trump, the president, incorrectly invoked a 227-year-old war legislation to deport Cuban gang members to an institution in El Salvador, setting up what could turn into yet another high-stakes legal fight at the U.S. Supreme Court.
The decision on Thursday is the biggest loss for Trump’s efforts to formally arrest suspected group members under the flimsy Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which he invoked in a March 15 a a wave of arrests and dispute.
Because the U.S. is not being invaded by a foreign power or experiencing a “predatory intrusion,” as required by the law, which may allow the removal of such creatures without due process, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., a Trump appointee, ruled the government’s activities weren’t legitimate. The first of its kind removals from Rodriguez’s order is permanently prohibited in his district in southern Texas.
According to Rodriguez, the ruling demonstrates that the president’s proclamation of the AEA goes beyond the scope of the statute and goes against the plain, common meaning of the statute’s terms.
The first case in its kind to address Trump’s claim that the administration is sending Venezuelan nationals to a notorious prison in El Salvador is Tren de Aragua’s. The Immigration and Nationality Act, one of the common laws used in such circumstances, did not prevent the administration from deporting individuals, as the judge did.
The judge’s decision, according to White House spokesman Kush Desai, “is undoubtedly shocking to the over 77 million Americans who gave us the mandate to enforce our immigration laws and deport terrorist illegal aliens,” according to a statement from the White House.” Unfortunately, federal courts try to stop the President from exercising his lawful authority to protect the American people,” the White House said in a statement.
In an interview with Fox News, Vice President JD Vance indicated that the administration would contest any decisions that would restrict Trump’s authority to deport illegal immigrants.
” We’re aggressively appealing this stuff,” Vance said. We believe that the Supreme Court, the higher appeals courts, will recognize that the president of the United States has a key role to play in enforcing immigration laws. You are telling the president that he is not permitted to be president if you tell him that he is not. We reject that.
Venezuelan immigrants facing potential deportation from across the , U.S. and have been arguing since March that Trump’s AEA proclamation was unlawful because the , U.S.  , isn’t at war. In contrast to an earlier immigration court order, many have also denied being gang members, including a Maryland a man who was deported under the AEA to his native country, El Salvador.
The judge “ruled the president can’t unilaterally declare an invasion of , the United States , and invoke a wartime authority during peacetime,” according to attorney Lee Gelernt, lead counsel for the lead legal fight. Congress, this 18th-century wartime law was never intended to be used in this manner. This decision, which prevents more people from entering the notorious CECOT prison, is crucial.
A representative from the Justice Department, the , did not respond to a request for comment right away.
Rodriguez claimed that Trump’s proclamation from March 15 doesn’t properly define behavior that falls under the definition of “invasion” for the purposes of referring to the AEA.
The judge wrote that Trump’s order “makes no reference to and in no way 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 take control of a portion of the country” ( p.
The judge added that the proclamation “falls short” of describing a predatory incursion as the concept was understood when the law was passed more than two centuries ago. The AEA had previously only been used in World War I, World War I, and World War II.
The judge criticized the proclamation, saying that while it makes mention of TdA members who have harmed lives in , the United States  and commit crimes, it does not suggest that they have done so through an organized armed attack or that Venezuela has attempted or threatened to attack TdA members through them.
The Supreme Court of the United States has twice intervened in these legal disputes, most recently halting detentions from a detention facility in central Texas, but not on the fundamental issue of Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act. A majority of justices previously decided that these cases must be brought separately in the detentional court, launching a fresh wave of legal action nationwide.
J is the case. A. V. v. Trump, 25-cv-072,  , US District Court, Southern District , of , Texas  , ( Brownsville ).
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