A conservative appeals court has rejected President Trump’s claim that undocumented immigration amounts to an “invasion” of the U.S., shooting down a key legal pillar of his mass deportation effort.
The three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Alien Enemies Act does not authorize Trump to rapidly deport suspected members of a Venezuelan gang without due process.
The decision is a major setback for Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown but the conservative-dominated Supreme Court is still likely to get the last word on the issue.
“The Trump administration’s use of a wartime statute during peacetime to regulate immigration was rightly shut down by the court,” said Lee Gelernt a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union. “This is a critically important decision reining in the administration’s view that it can simply declare an emergency without any oversight by the courts.”
In the 2-1 ruling, the judges agreed with immigrant rights advocates and lower court rulings that the undocumented immigrants accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang did not amount to an “invasion or predatory incursion” as defined by the Alien Enemies Act.
The administration cited the 1798 law to deport hundreds of alleged gang members in March without any normal due process, like presenting any evidence of their gang membership.
They were sent to CECOT, a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador, in exchange for payment from the U.S. In a deal announced in July, more than 250 of the deported migrants were returned to Venezuela.
In a related case, Salvadoran immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly swept up in the mass deportation to his homeland in violation of a court order. He was later returned to the U.S. and was later charged with human trafficking, charges he denies.
The Alien Enemies Act had previously been used only three times before in U.S. history, all during actual, declared wars against foreign nations including the War of 1812 and both World War I and World War II.
The Trump administration argued that courts should not second-guess the president’s decision that Tren de Aragua represented a danger to the United States, giving Trump wide authority to act against the alleged
The decision bars deportations from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. George W. Bush appointee Judge Leslie Southwick and Joe Biden appointee Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez backed the ruling. Judge Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee, dissented.
“A country’s encouraging its residents and citizens to enter this country illegally is not the modern-day equivalent of sending an armed, organized force to occupy, to disrupt, or to otherwise harm the United States,” the judges wrote.
In a lengthy dissent, Oldham argues that courts should give deference to Trump’s right to conduct foreign affairs and national security.
“The majority’s approach to this case is not only unprecedented — it is contrary to more than 200 years of precedent,” Oldham wrote.
The ruling can be appealed to the full Fifth Circuit or directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to make the ultimate decision on the issue.
