Appeals court blocks Trump from deporting alleged members of Tren de Aragua gang

A federal appeals court on Sept. 2 blocked President Donald Trump from invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of Venezuela’s violent Tren de Aragua gang.

In a 2-1 decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said the statute — which grants deportation powers only during a formal military invasion or “predatory incursion” — does not cover gang activity.

Judge Leslie Southwick, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in the majority opinion that while the court accepts “the finding that drug-trafficking is being used as a weapon,” it holds that this “is not within even an updated meaning of invasion or predatory incursion.”

“A country encouraging its residents and citizens to enter this country illegally,” Southwick continued, “is not the modern-day equivalent of sending an armed, organized force to occupy, to disrupt, or to otherwise harm the United States.”

Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Biden appointee, joined the opinion. 

Judge Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee who dissented, called the majority’s reasoning “contrary to more than 200 years of precedent.” He accused the majority of granting judges “herculean” power while making the president’s authority “subservient to the foreign-policy and public-safety hunches of every federal district judge in the country.”

The Trump administration had invoked the statute in March to defend deportation flights of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador, CatholicVote reported. In a March 15 White House statement, the administration said the gang was “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion” against the US. 

According to FOX News, the Alien Enemies Act has been used just three times in US history — during the War of 1812 and the two World Wars. 

The ruling bars Trump from applying the law to migrants detained in northern Texas. The legal fight is expected to continue at the Supreme Court. 

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told Daily Caller that “authority to conduct national security operations” and “to remove terrorists from the United States rests solely with the President.”

Jackson said Trump “exercised this lawful authority” when he employed the Alien Enemies Act, and “Judge Oldham’s dissent provides a careful review of this authority, and we expect to be vindicated on the merits in this case.”