(The Epoch Times)—A federal judge in Texas became the latest on June 9 to hold that President Donald Trump had misapplied the Alien Enemies Act in attempting to remove from the United States purported members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang.
In a 56-page opinion, U.S. District Judge David Briones said that Trump violated the Constitution’s guarantee of due process and failed to demonstrate that Tren de Aragua (TdA) was engaged in the type of invasion that allowed presidents to invoke the Act. His comments echoed those of three other federal judges but conflicted with at least one in Pennsylvania.
Briones’s permanent injunction compounded legal rulings that could prompt the Supreme Court to once again intervene on the issue. So far, the nation’s highest court has refrained from stating whether Trump invalidly invoked the law with a proclamation in March. Instead, it clarified the type of due process that Trump was required to provide those he seeks to remove from the country.
In March, the president described TdA as overtaking Venezuela and perpetrating “irregular warfare” against the United States, supporting the alleged goal of the Maduro regime to destabilize democracies in the region.
“[TdA] has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens, undermining public safety, and supporting the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States,” his proclamation read.
Briones said even if Trump’s assertions about the gang are true, his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act would still be illegal. A “predatory incursion” or “invasion” under the Alien Enemies Act must involve a foreign government engaging in a militarized intrusion into the United States with the purpose of obtaining control over territory, Briones added.
“Mass illegal migration or criminal activities plainly do not fall within the [Alien Enemies Act’s] statutory boundaries,” he said.
Part of his opinion quoted U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez in the Southern District of Texas, who had also blocked the administration from carrying out deportations. Rodriguez said Trump’s use of the word “invasion” didn’t comport with its meaning when the legislation was passed early in American history.
Besides Rodriguez and Briones, two other federal judges in Colorado and New York have said Trump’s use of the law was illegal. In Pennsylvania, however, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Haines’s decision supported the administration’s use of the law.
In an opinion issued on May 13, Haines noted that TdA has been designated a foreign terrorist organization. That designation, she said, “heavily supports the conclusions … that TdA is a cohesive group united by a common goal of causing significant disruption to the public safety of the United States.”
She said, however, that the administration had provided insufficient notice of deportation to detainees and that it couldn’t remove the Venezuelan national who had brought the lawsuit unless it provided 21 days’ notice, among other things.
The administration has maintained that the judiciary is intruding on Trump’s authority as the head of the executive branch.
In the Central District of California, federal Judge John Holcomb pushed back on the extent to which the administration sought to avoid judicial review of Trump’s authority under the law. The judge’s opinion also suggested he believes his colleagues in the federal judiciary had gone too far in attempting to define incursion or invasion.
“Because the AEA permits the President to decide whether those events have occurred, the AEA necessarily also grants to the President the discretion to decide what those terms mean,” Holcomb said last week.
