A federal judge Thursday crossed the Trump administration The expulsion of the Venezuelans of South Texas under a law in wartime of the 18th century and said that the invocation of President Donald Trump was “illegal”.
The judge of the American district court Fernando Rodriguez Jr. is the first judge to rule that the Act extraterrestrial enemies cannot be used against people who, according to the republican administration, are gang members invading the United States.
“Neither the court nor the parties question that the executive power can direct the detention and the withdrawal of foreigners who engage in criminal activity in the United States,” wrote Rodriguez, who was appointed by Trump in 2018. But, the judge declared, “the invocation of the president of the AEA through the proclamation exceeds the scope of the status and is contrary to the sense, ordinary.”
In March, Trump published a proclamation claiming that the Venezuelan gang Tren of Aragua invades the United States, he said that he had special powers to expel immigrants, identified by his administration as gang members, without the usual legal proceedings.
“The Court concludes that the invocation by the president of the AEA through proclamation exceeds the scope of the status and, consequently, is illegal,” wrote Rodriguez.
The Act respecting extraterrestrial enemies has only been used three times before in the history of the United States, more recently during the Second World War, when it was cited to ban Japanese-American.
The proclamation triggered a wave of disputes while the administration tried to send migrants that he presented if gang members in a notorious prison in Salvador.
Rodriguez’s decision is important because it is the first formal permanent injunction against administration using AEA and maintains that the president uses the law. “The Congress never wanted this law to be used in this way,” said Lee Genernt, the ACLU lawyer who asserted the case, in response to the decision.
Rodriguez agreed, noting that the provision was only used during the two world wars and the war of 1812. Trump said that Tren de Aragua acted at the request of the Venezuelan government, but Rodriguez noted that the activities that the administration accused should not constitute an invasion or a “predatory incursion”, as required.
“The proclamation makes no reference and in no way suggests a threat of an organized armed group of people entering the United States towards Venezuela to conquer the country or assume control of part of the nation,” Rodriguez wrote. “Thus, the language of proclamation cannot be read as describing a conduct which is the meaning of” invasion “for the ends of the AEA.”
If the administration calls, it would first go to the 5th American circuit of Appeals based in New Orleans. It was among the country’s most conservative appeal courses and also ruled against what he considered an excessive excess on immigration issues by Obama and Biden administrations. In these cases, democratic administrations had sought to allow immigrants to stay more easily in the United States
The administration, as he did in other cases contesting his vast vision of the presidential power, could turn to the courts of appeal, including the Supreme Court of the United States, in the form of an emergency request for a suspension pending an appeal.
The Supreme Court has already weighed once on the issue of deportations under AEA. The judges judged that migrants who would be gang members should be “a reasonable time” to challenge their withdrawal from the country. The court did not specify the duration.
It is possible that the losing team of the 5th circuit would file an emergency call to the judges who would also ask them to short-circuit lower justice in favor of a final decision of the highest court of the country. Such a decision would probably be in months, at least.
The Texas affair is only a piece of a tangle of disputes triggered by the proclamation of Trump.
ACLU initially brought an action in the national capital to block deportations. US District Judge James E. Boasberg launched a temporary grip on moves and ordered the administration to return planes that had left with prisoners heading for El Salvador, a directive that was apparently ignored. Later, the Supreme Court weighed.
The judges intervened at the end of last month with an unusual after-free order prohibiting the deportations of northern Texas, where the ACLU argued that the administration was prepared for another series of flights to El Salvador.
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Riccardi has reported to Denver. The editors of the Associated Press Lindsay Whitehurst and Mark Sherman contributed to this report.
