odanny
Diamond Member
It's not getting rid of the gang members that should warrant a legal pause, it is the means under which deporting them is attempted. Should the Alien Enemy Act be the appropriate vehicle here, or is this just another overreach by Trump? Can any foreign national deemed a threat be deported under a broad interpretation of this? The legal aspect of this will now be under scrutiny. This to me seems more designed to win public approval in Trump executive actions, knowing that arguing in favor of these alleged gang members will be unpopular.
I'm guessing this is all in the Project 2025 handbook.
A federal judge barred President Donald Trump on Saturday from using a wartime powers act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members without a hearing, ordering the administration to turn around any planes that had already taken off after the Alien Enemies Act quietly went into effect.
Trump signed a proclamation Friday to deploy the Alien Enemies Act of 1789 for the first time since World War II to swiftly remove Venezuelans allegedly involved in the transnational gang known as Tren de Aragua. The act has been used only three times before to bar citizens of hostile enemy governments from the United States, and only during a declared war. The White House kept the proclamation under wraps until after advocates for immigrants sued Saturday, fearing he was already sweeping immigrants out of the country.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed immigration officials had “arrested nearly 300 Tren de Aragua terrorists” over the weekend and sent them to El Salvador. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said that 238 members of the transnational Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and 23 members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang had already arrived in that country and were in his custody, with a social media post responding to the judge’s ruling that said “Oopsie, too late,” followed by a laughing emoji.
Bukele shared video showing the prisoners arriving at the airport, surrounded by heavily armed, camouflage-clad men. Bukele said they were taken to a “Terrorism Confinement Center,” where the video showed that masked officers then forced the men to their knees, shaved their heads and marched them in white shirts and shorts into a cell block. Bukele said the inmates would go into forced labor for at least a year, possibly more, and that the “United States will pay a very low fee for them.”
“Thank you for your assistance and friendship, President Bukele,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio replied on X.
It was not immediately clear whether the men were deported under the act, but Trump has declared both gangs “foreign terrorist organizations”and prepared to use the act to summarily remove them without a hearing.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge in the District of Columbia, quickly blocked officials from deporting Venezuelans on Saturday under the act, though he said in court that he did not know until that afternoon that it had even been issued, starting with five men facing imminent deportation and then expanding it later in the day to anyone in custody who might be subject to the proclamation.
As he issued his ruling, the judge said he heard that “flights are actively departing” and ordered the Trump administration to immediately halt the removals and return to the United States any flights that were in the air.
He said the immigrants — who could be as young as 14, under the proclamation — clearly face irreparable harm, “given that these folks will be deported and many or the vast majority to prisons in other countries or sent back to Venezuela, where they face persecution, or worse.”
WaPo
I'm guessing this is all in the Project 2025 handbook.
A federal judge barred President Donald Trump on Saturday from using a wartime powers act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members without a hearing, ordering the administration to turn around any planes that had already taken off after the Alien Enemies Act quietly went into effect.
Trump signed a proclamation Friday to deploy the Alien Enemies Act of 1789 for the first time since World War II to swiftly remove Venezuelans allegedly involved in the transnational gang known as Tren de Aragua. The act has been used only three times before to bar citizens of hostile enemy governments from the United States, and only during a declared war. The White House kept the proclamation under wraps until after advocates for immigrants sued Saturday, fearing he was already sweeping immigrants out of the country.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed immigration officials had “arrested nearly 300 Tren de Aragua terrorists” over the weekend and sent them to El Salvador. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said that 238 members of the transnational Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and 23 members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang had already arrived in that country and were in his custody, with a social media post responding to the judge’s ruling that said “Oopsie, too late,” followed by a laughing emoji.
Bukele shared video showing the prisoners arriving at the airport, surrounded by heavily armed, camouflage-clad men. Bukele said they were taken to a “Terrorism Confinement Center,” where the video showed that masked officers then forced the men to their knees, shaved their heads and marched them in white shirts and shorts into a cell block. Bukele said the inmates would go into forced labor for at least a year, possibly more, and that the “United States will pay a very low fee for them.”
“Thank you for your assistance and friendship, President Bukele,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio replied on X.
It was not immediately clear whether the men were deported under the act, but Trump has declared both gangs “foreign terrorist organizations”and prepared to use the act to summarily remove them without a hearing.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge in the District of Columbia, quickly blocked officials from deporting Venezuelans on Saturday under the act, though he said in court that he did not know until that afternoon that it had even been issued, starting with five men facing imminent deportation and then expanding it later in the day to anyone in custody who might be subject to the proclamation.
As he issued his ruling, the judge said he heard that “flights are actively departing” and ordered the Trump administration to immediately halt the removals and return to the United States any flights that were in the air.
He said the immigrants — who could be as young as 14, under the proclamation — clearly face irreparable harm, “given that these folks will be deported and many or the vast majority to prisons in other countries or sent back to Venezuela, where they face persecution, or worse.”
WaPo
