Tren de Aragua âis perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States,â Trump said.
President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798âa law allowing for quick deportation of foreigners during times of war or invasionâand ordered the immediate arrest and removal from the United States of all Venezuelan nationals deemed to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang, who are now considered âalien enemies.â
In the proclamation, Trump asserts that many of the groupâs members have unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are âconducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actionsâ against the country.
Tren de Aragua âis perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States,â Trump said.
âI direct that all Alien Enemies described in section 1 of this proclamation are subject to immediate apprehension, detention, and removal, and further that they shall not be permitted residence in the United States,â states Trumpâs proclamation, which also directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to communicate to members of the judicial branch that this is now the official policy of the United States.
The presidentâs decision to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to fast-track the deportation of Tren de Aragua members has already drawn a legal challenge from civil rights groups and a temporary block from a federal judge.
In halting the deportation of the five Venezuelan nationals for two weeks, the judge found that the plaintiffs met the threshold for preliminary relief, including a likelihood of success on the merits, and irreparable harm if deported.
The judge scheduled a March 17 hearing to determine if his temporary restraining order should be extended into a preliminary injunction, which could block the deportations indefinitely while the case is litigated.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the ruling. However, Trump declared an âinvasionâ at the southern border on day one back in office, a designation that could have major implications for the legal battle over the administrationâs use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport individuals quickly and with little due process.
The president further asserted that the âinvasionâ has caused âwidespread chaos and sufferingâ in the United States and continues to pose a âpresent danger and imminent threatâ to U.S. communities, ordering the military and Homeland Security to take immediate action to secure the border.
In contrast, the ACLU and Democracy Forward contend in their lawsuit that the United States is neither at war with Venezuela nor facing an invasion from a foreign country, and so the Trump administrationâs use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport the five Venezuelan menâalleged members of Tren de Araguaâis illegitimate.
âThe vagueness and breadth of the expected Proclamation, along with the governmentâs haphazard process for accusing individuals of affiliation with Tren de Aragua, will undoubtedly result in fear and uncertainty about the Proclamationâs scope, and will chill immigrants in their day-to-day activities and the exercise of their basic constitutional rights,â the ACLU and Democracy Forward wrote in their complaint.
They describe Trumpâs invocation of the Alien Enemies Act as an âextraordinary and atextual invocation of a war powerâ that is unjustified as it comes outside of the context of an actual or imminent war, alleging that the move even threatens âthe broader stability of the United Statesâ legal order.â
Since taking office, Trump has acted decisively on immigration enforcement, including ordering federal agencies to take immediate action to repel and remove illegal immigrants who cross the border.
The Alien Enemies Act has been invoked only three times in more than 200 years. Its most recent use was by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, to intern Japanese, German, and Italian Americans. The internment camps have since been widely condemned by civil rights organizations.
According to Joshua Treviño, chief transformation officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, two conditions must be met to invoke the act.
First, there must be a war, invasion, or predatory incursion into U.S. territory. Second, the act of aggression must be carried out by a foreign government.
Treviño said that if an organizationâsuch as a cartel or foreign gangâcan kill Americans on U.S. soil while operating with the support of a foreign state, it can be argued that they are effectively invading the country.
âThey actually do have state support. In many cases, they are state agents,â Treviño told The Epoch Times in an earlier interview, in reference to Mexican cartels.
Itâs unclear how the courts will ultimately view Trumpâs invocation of war powers to deport Tren de Aragua gang members. However, the president wrote in his proclamation that Tren de Aragua is closely aligned with the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and supports Maduroâs âgoal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States.â
Over the years, Venezuela has ceded ever greater control to transnational criminal organizations including Tren de Aragua, Trump said, calling the country a âhybrid criminal stateâ that is now perpetrating an invasion of the United States.
Trump wrote in the proclamation that evidence âirrefutably demonstratesâ that Tren de Aragua has invaded the United States and continues to do so, while also engaging in irregular warfare against the United States on behalf of the Maduro regime.
Darlene McCormick Sanchez contributed to this report.
Original News Source Link – Epoch Times
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