On Saturday, President Trump issued an executive order to deport Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemy Act of 1798.
The order declares that at least 14-year-old Venezuelans in the United States without approval, and that some of the Tren de Aragua gangs are “obligated to be arrested, restrained, secured and removed.”
Alien Enemy Law allows for the summaries of people from countries at war with the United States. The law best known for its role in the detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II was called three times into US history in 1812, during the wars of World War I and World War II, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a law and policy organization.
Hours before the White House issued its declaration, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of five Venezuelan men trying to stop the president from calling the law.
Federal judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a limited order on Saturday preventing the government from deporting five men.
The Trump administration immediately filed an appeal for the order, and the ACLU asked judges to expand the order to apply to all immigrants at risk of deportation under the alien enemy laws.
In the lawsuit, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union wrote that they believe Venezuelans face immediate risks of deportation. “The government declaration allows agents to quickly place non-citizens on planes,” the lawsuit said, adding that the law “evidently applies only to war-like behavior” and that “here, the people, Venezuela) and the United States are not at war.”
The White House and the Department of Homeland Security, who run the country's immigration system and appointed in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Alien Enemy Law texts state that “there is a war declared between the United States and foreign or government, or that an invasion or predatory invasion is being committed, threatened or threatened against the territory of the United States.”
Noah Feldman, a Harvard University professor of constitutional law, said the fate of a case that could ultimately get caught up in the Supreme Court depends on “how much respect the court will pay to the president's decision that there will be a threatened intrusion.” The judge would have to make that decision “without many precedents,” Professor Feldman added.
Trump, who campaigned last year on the promise to launch the biggest deportation operation in US history, often referred to the arrival of illicit immigrants as an “invasion.” One of the first executive orders issued after returning to the White House was entitled “Protecting Americans from invasion.”
His declaration, which evoked alien enemy law, appeared to have narrowly focused on Tren de Aragua, a gangster who emerged from Venezuelan prisons and grew into a criminal organization focused on sex trafficking, drug trafficking and human smuggling.
However, the law allows other immigrants over the age of 14 to be arrested and eliminated without court hearing.
“The Trump administration's intention to use wartime administrations to enforce immigration is as unprecedented as it is lawless,” said Lee Gerelund, an ACLU lawyer. “That may still be the most extreme measure of the administration.”
