Judge won't lift block on Trump use of Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg declined to lift a restraining order barring the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans, determining migrants are likely to succeed in pushing for hearings on whether they are in a gang.
Boasberg noted President Trump’s “unprecedented use of the Act outside of the typical wartime context” in signing an order that allowed the removal of any Venezuelan suspected of being a member of the Tren de Aragua gang.
“Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on another equally fundamental theory: before they may be deported, they are entitled to individualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to them at all,” Boasberg wrote.
“Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge.”
Boasberg noted the Trump administration is still free to deport Venezuelans through regular immigration authorities.
“The Order did not prevent Defendants from removing anyone — to include members of the class — through other immigration authorities such as the [Immigration and Nationality Act]. Indeed, as previously mentioned, those affiliated with Tren de Aragua were all already deportable under that statute as members of an [Foreign Terrorist Organization],” he wrote.
The order comes amid a separate legal battle in the case to determine whether the Trump administration violated a court order from Boasberg directing any flights taking the migrants to a Salvadoran prison be halted or turned around.
“The government’s not being terribly cooperative at this point, but I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order, who ordered this and what the consequences will be,” Boasberg said Friday after the Trump administration repeatedly refused to provide information as to the timing of the flights.
In his Monday order, Boasberg separately noted other issues with sending migrants to a Salvadoran prison, which have been accused of torturing inmates.
He said the roughly 260 Venezuelans brought to El Salvador under both the Alien Enemies Act and through immigration authorities were not informed where they were being taken and did not have an opportunity to raise convention against torture claims.
“Without such information, even if they had been given an opportunity to raise a torture claim, they would not have been able to meaningfully do so,” Boasberg wrote.
Updated at 11:04 a.m. EDT
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