The judge, who barred deportations of accused Venezuelan gang members in his district, appears to be the first to rule on the order’s merits.
A federal judge on Thursday ruled that President Donald Trump’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members is unlawful and barred the government from deporting alleged gang members in southern Texas.
“The Court concludes that the President’s invocation of the AEA (Alien Enemies) through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful. Respondents do not possess the lawful authority under the AEA, and based on the Proclamation, to detain Venezuelan aliens, transfer them within the United States, or remove them from the country,” he wrote.
Rodriguez’s order means that the Trump administration cannot use the law to deport or detain alleged members of Tren de Arauga, a Venezuelan gang, in his district, the Southern District of Texas.
“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, and would strip the courts of their traditional role of interpreting Congressional statutes to determine whether a government official has exceeded the statute’s scope,” the judge wrote. “The law does not support such a position.”
In March, Trump issued a proclamation claiming that Tren de Aragua was invading the United States, coming after the State Department declared Tren de Aragua, El Salvadoran gang MS-13, and Mexican cartels foreign terrorist organizations.
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The proclamation triggered a flurry of litigation as the Trump administration tried to send illegal immigrants it determined to be gang members to a large prison in El Salvador.
Rodriguez noted that the Alien Enemies Act has only been used during the two World Wars and the War of 1812. Trump said Tren de Aragua was acting at the behest of the Venezuelan government, but Rodriguez found that the activities the Trump administration accused it of did not amount to an invasion or “predatory incursion,” as the statute requires.
“The Proclamation makes no reference to and in no manner 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 assume control over a portion of the nation,” the judge wrote.
“Thus, the Proclamation’s language cannot be read as describing conduct that falls within the meaning of ‘invasion’ for purposes of the AEA.”
In April, the U.S. Supreme Court held that illegal immigrants who are accused of being gang members have to be given “reasonable time” to petition their deportation from the United States, although it did not specify how long that could take.
Later, the high court issued an order to bar deportations of Venezuelan illegal immigrants held in a northern Texas facility under the Alien Enemies Act.
“The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court,” the Supreme Court said in an unsigned order.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, with Alito saying that the order was issued in what he characterized as an unusual manner.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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