The federal judge strikes the use by Trump of extraterrestrial enemies to expel the Venezuelans

On Thursday, a federal judge permanently prohibited the Trump administration from invoking the law on extraterrestrial enemies, a law of the 18th century in wartime, to expel the Venezuelans that he judged criminals from the South District of Texas, affirming that the use of the law by the White House was illegal.

The decision of the judge, Fernando Rodriguez Jr., was the largest decision to date of one of the many lawyers who currently hear challenges to the efforts of the White House to use the powerful law but rarely invoked in the context of his deportation plans.

The 36-page decision of judge Rodriguez, a president appointed by Trump, was equivalent to a philosophical rejection of the White House attempts to transpose the law on extraterrestrial enemies, which was adopted in 1798 while the emerging United States was threatened by war with France, in the context of modern immigration policy.

The Supreme Court has already declared that all the Venezuelans that the White House wanted to expel under the proclamation of Mr. Trump invoking the act must have the possibility of contesting their withdrawal. But the decision of judge Rodriguez went further, saying that the White House had poorly extended the meaning of the law, which is supposed to be used only against the members of a hostile foreign nation in time declared or during a military invasion.

While the decision of judge Rodriguez was only applied to Venezuelan immigrants in the South Texas District – which includes cities like Houston, Brownsville and Laredo – this could have an effect, if not binding, on some of the other cases involving the use of the administration of the Extraterrestrial Enemies Act.

“The Court concludes that in law, the executive power cannot count on the AEA, on the basis of the proclamation, to hold the named petitioners and the certified class, or to withdraw them from the country,” wrote Judge Rodriguez.