'Nazis got better treatment,' judge says of Trump administration's Alien Enemies Act deportations
An appeals court heard arguments over the use of the Alien Enemies Act.
Trump administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act last week to
deport more than 200 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador with no due process.
"There's no regulations, and nothing was adopted by the agency officials that were administering this. They people weren't given notice. They weren't told where they were going. They were given those people on those planes on that Saturday and had no opportunity to file habeas or any type of action to challenge the removal under the AEA," Judge Millet said. "What's factually wrong about what I said?"
"So your theory is that they don't get the challenges until they're in the Salvadorian jail?" the judge said. "Are you saying that they don't have a right, until they're removed from the United States, in U.S. custody, to challenge?"
"The problem here is that they are challenging implementation of a proclamation in a way that never gave anyone a chance to say, 'I'm not covered,'" the judge said.
"And if your argument is we didn't have to do that, it's an intrusion on the president's war powers, the courts are paralyzed to do anything ... that's a misreading of precedent, misreading of the text of the Alien Enemies Act," she said.
Judge Millett and Ensign appeared to agree on one thing: The president's actions have brought the court into "unprecedented territory."
"I think the intrusion upon the War Powers and foreign policy powers of the president is utterly unprecedented," Ensign argued.
"Well, this is an unprecedented action as well," Millet responded. "So of course, there's no precedent for it, because no president has ever used this statute this way, which isn't to say one way or the other if it can be done, but simply to say we are in unprecedented territory."
The hearing comes hours after Judge Boasberg ruled that the migrants deserved to have a court hearing before their deportations to determine whether they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang.
In a ruling denying the Trump administration's request to dissolve his order blocking the deportations, Judge Boasberg wrote that Trump's "unprecedented use" of the Alien Enemies Act does not remove the government's responsibility to ensure the men removed could contest their designation as alleged gang members.
Trump last week invoked the
Alien Enemies Act -- a wartime authority used to deport noncitizens with little-to-no due process -- by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a "hybrid criminal state" that is invading the United States. Boasberg temporarily blocked the president's use of the law to deport more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvador, calling the removals "awfully frightening" and "incredibly troublesome."
An official with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement subsequently
acknowledged in a sworn declaration that "many" of the noncitizens deported last week under the Alien Enemies Act did not have criminal records in the United States.