A group of Venezuelans in immigration detention in Texas and New York jails filed a federal lawsuit on Saturday against President Trump, and other officials of the administration. They asked a federal court to block future removals of migrants under a law passed during wartime known as the Alien Enemies Act of 1898. The judge indicated Saturday evening that he would temporarily block the law.
On Saturday, Mr. Trump invoked a 227-year old wartime law.
The ACLU and Democracy Forward attorneys filed a lawsuit in federal court, Washington, D.C., arguing that the Alien Enemies Act was “a wartime tool that has only been used three times in the history of our nation: in the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II.”
Presidents are given the extraordinary power by the 227-year-old law to order the arrest, detention and deportation of noncitizens who are 14 years or older and come from countries staging an “invasion or predatory incursion” of the U.S.
The lawsuit claims that Mr. Trump “should authorize the immediate removal of alien enemies that are deemed by the Proclamation to be non-citizens, without any chance for judicial review.”
The lawsuit claims that the “plain language” of the Act is also distorted: Arrivals of noncitizens in Venezuela are deemed as an ‘invasion or a predatory incursion’ of a foreign government or nation’, where Tren de Aragua (a Venezuelan gang) is deemed similar enough to a foreign government or nation.
The lawsuit claims that the government has the right to identify any Venezuelan living in the U.S., regardless of the facts, as a member and deport them.
The men argue in the civil suit that the Alien Enemies Act is only applicable to actions taken in wartime. It cannot be used against Venezuelan nationals, as the United States are not at war with Venezuela, it is not invading Venezuela, nor has Venezuela launched an incursion in the United States.
James E. Boasberg is the chief judge of District Court for U.S. District of Columbia. He issued a temporary restraining orders on Saturday to prevent the deportation for a period of 14 days. The Justice Department appealed this decision, arguing that the D.C. Court has no jurisdiction over the case since none of the men is in the District. Four men are in detention in Texas, and one is in New York. The group also claims that the Alien Enemies Act can only be invoked “speculatively.”
Boasberg then expanded his order during a subsequent emergency hearing on Saturday evening to include all noncitizens who were covered by Trump’s decision to invoke the Alien Enemies Act.
