Trump-Appointed Judge Rules Deportations Under Alien Enemies Act Were Unlawful
(Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire) (Icon Sportswire via AP Images)
A Trump-appointed federal judge ruled on Thursday that the Trump administration unlawfully used the Alien Enemies Act in deporting alleged migrant gang members to an El Salvadoran mega prison.
U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, Jr. wrote, “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.”
Rodriguez’s ruling added that the administration using the 18th-century wartime law 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 law does not support such a position.”
The judge also took issue with Trump claiming that gang members illegally entering the United States constitutes a “predatory incursion,” the standard set in the AEA for its use.
“In the significant majority of the records, the use of ‘invasion’ and ‘predatory incursion’ referred to an attack by military forces,” Judge Rodriguez noted, and argued such an attack would “involve an organized, armed force entering the United States to engage in conduct destructive of property and human life in a specific geographical area.”
Trump has used several emergency measures to govern since taking office, including to levy his massive tariffs on foreign countries.
Trump deporting alleged gang members to El Salvador’s notorious megaprison has created weeks of controversy in the U.S. and resulted in court cases going all the way up to the Supreme Court.
The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was arrested and detained by U.S. authorities, accused of being an MS-13 gang member, and quickly shipped off to El Salvador for indefinite imprisonment without any kind of hearing or due process, has grabbed headlines and resulted in an outcry amid critics of the move. The U.S. government entered into a contract with the government of El Salvador and is paying $6 million a year to keep some 200 prisoners locked up – many of whom investigative journalists found had no known criminal record.
A judge ordered the government to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. and found the evidence for him being a gang member to be severely lacking, and wrote about it in her ruling. “The ‘evidence’ against Abrego Garcia consisted of nothing more than his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie, and a vague, uncorroborated allegation from a confidential informant claiming he belonged to MS-13’s ‘Western’ clique in New York — a place he has never lived,” Judge Paula Xinis wrote, in a decision held up by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S.
The Trump administration continues to claim that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13, a gang Trump has deemed a foreign terrorist organization. In previous Supreme Court rulings on the deportations, the court said Trump can use the AEA, but ruled, “detainees subject to removal orders under the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal.” Adding that “notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief.”
