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A judge thwarted Donald Trump’s attempt on Saturday to target a Venezuelan gang by using a law that was last applied against Japanese residents during World War II.
The US president claimed he had the authority to designate suspected members of the Venezuelan drug gang Tren de Aragua as “alien enemies” under a wartime provision, and he issued an order to deport them.
A federal judge, however, ordered the administration to refrain from deporting anyone until he had more time to think about whether the order is lawful after rights lawyers challenged it in court.
A president may imprison or deport nationals of an enemy country under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime power that has been used three times.
In the War of 1812, World War I, and—most notably—World War II, it interned almost 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans from 1942 to 1946.
Tren de Aragua is now the subject of Trump’s vigorous campaign to deport thousands of undocumented migrants, as he promised supporters.
The White House said in a statement that the transnational criminal group has significant ties to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s administration.
“A hybrid criminal state is committing an invasion and predatory incursion into the United States as a result,” the president stated in the statement.
– ‘Extreme measure’ –
Trump claimed that Tren de Aragua is “conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime.”
According to the statement, all members of the Tren de Aragua gang are “subject to immediate apprehension, detention, and removal.” Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, has 60 days to implement the decision.
All Venezuelan Tren de Aragua members who are older than 14 and who are neither naturalised US citizens nor lawful permanent residents will be subject to the detention and expulsion order.
The American Civil Liberties Union’s Lee Gelernt described the Trump administration’s intention to enforce immigration laws using a wartime authority as “unprecedented and lawless.”
Gelernt, the lead attorney and deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said, “It may be the administration’s most extreme measure yet, and that is saying a lot.”
The American Civil Liberties Union and its affiliate, Democracy Forward, petitioned the US District Court in Washington to stop the deportations, claiming that the 1798 Act was not meant to be used during times of peace.
Judge James Boasberg put a 14-day freeze on any deportations under the new order while he makes a decision on the case’s substance, which he has yet to do.
The decision, according to Attorney General Bondi’s statement, “disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power, and it puts the public and law enforcement at risk.”
According to the court order, if the White House does not file a motion by Monday to reverse the pause, the next hearing will take place on March 21.
