A group of Venezuelan men in immigration detention in Texas and local jails in New York have initiated a federal civil lawsuit against President Trump and other officials from his administration, seeking a court order to prohibit the future deportation of immigrants under a wartime statute known as the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
Mr. Trump invoked this 227-year-old wartime statute on Saturday.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. by attorneys from the ACLU and Democracy Forward, contends that the Alien Enemies Act is “a wartime measure that has been used only three times in our Nation’s history: the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II.”
The law, which has stood for 227 years, grants presidents the exceptional authority to order the arrest, detention, and deportation of noncitizens aged 14 and older who come from countries engaged in an “invasion or predatory incursion” against the U.S.
The lawsuit claims that Mr. Trump “is expected to authorize immediate removal of noncitizens that the Proclamation identifies as alien enemies, without any chance for judicial review.”
“It also distorts the plain language of the Act: arrivals of noncitizens from Venezuela are labeled as an ‘invasion’ or ‘predatory incursion’ by a ‘foreign nation or government’, where Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, is regarded as sufficiently analogous to a foreign nation or government,” the lawsuit asserts.
Consequently, the government can categorize any Venezuelan in the U.S. as affiliated with that gang, irrespective of the evidence, and pursue deportation, the lawsuit alleges.
In their civil action, the men argue that the Alien Enemies Act “has only ever been a power invoked during times of war, and is clearly applicable only to wartime actions: it cannot be applied here against nationals of a country — Venezuela — with which the United States is not at war, that is not invading the United States, and which has not conducted a predatory incursion into the United States.”
On Saturday, James E. Boasberg, chief judge of the District Court for the U.S. District of Columbia, issued a temporary restraining order halting deportations for a duration of 14 days. The Justice Department has appealed this decision, arguing that the D.C. court lacks jurisdiction over the case because none of the five men are located in the district—four are detained in Texas while one is in New York. They further contend that the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act is based on “speculation.”
During an emergency hearing on Saturday evening, Boasberg broadened his order to encompass all noncitizens affected by Mr. Trump’s application of the Alien Enemies Act.
