Trump invoked the little-known AEA, which was last used to round up Japanese-American citizens during World War II, on March 15 and flew two planeloads of alleged TdA members to El Salvador’s notorious maximum security CECOT prison
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A federal judge in Texas ruled on Thursday that President Donald Trump’s use of an obscure wartime law to summarily deport alleged Venezuelan gang members was “unlawful.”
District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, a Trump appointee, blocked any deportations from his southern Texas district of alleged members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA).
Trump invoked the little-known AEA, which was last used to round up Japanese-American citizens during World War II, on March 15 and flew two planeloads of alleged TdA members to El Salvador’s notorious maximum security CECOT prison.
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In a proclamation, Trump said Tren de Aragua was engaged in “hostile actions” and “threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States,” adding that Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro was pulling the strings.
The Supreme Court and several district courts have temporarily halted removals under the AEA citing a lack of due process, but Rodriguez is the first federal judge to find that its use is unlawful.
“The president cannot summarily declare that a foreign nation or government has threatened or perpetrated an invasion or predatory incursion of the United States,” the judge said in his 36-page order.
“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,” Rodriguez said.
“The president’s invocation of the AEA… exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful,” the judge said.
The administration does not have the lawful authority, under the AEA, “to detain Venezuelan aliens, transfer them within the