N.Y. judge finds Alien Enemies Act use illegal, blocks removals to ‘evil’ jail
NEW YORK — A federal judge on Tuesday barred the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan immigrants without a hearing, saying the White House has failed to prove the existence of an “invasion” or another conflict that would justify invoking the centuries-old law.
U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein’s ruling halts the removal of immigrants being detained in his court’s jurisdiction in New York. The judge said such rulings are all that stops the administration from sending more Venezuelan immigrants to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador “where they would endure abuse and inhumane treatment with no recourse to bring them back.”
Hellerstein is among several judges who have determined that the administration’s use of the act for the expulsion of migrants is based on an illegal interpretation of the law and that President Donald Trump overstepped his authority.
Also Tuesday, a district judge in Colorado granted a preliminary injunction after initially issuing a temporary restraining order blocking the removal of migrants under the Alien Enemies Act in her judicial district.
In her opinion, Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney described the Trump administration’s definition of an invasion as “unpersuasive” and rejected the administration’s argument that the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was outside of judicial review. She said the plaintiffs had met the threshold of facing “irreparable harm,” citing the conditions in CECOT, the Salvadoran megaprison.
Officials have sent more than 200 immigrants to the prison since mid-March, including more than 100 Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act because the government alleged they were members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
“The destination, El Salvador, a country paid to take our aliens, is neither the country from which the aliens came, nor to which they wish to be removed,” Hellerstein wrote in his 22-page ruling. “But they are taken there, and there to remain, indefinitely, in a notoriously evil jail, unable to communicate with counsel, family or friends.”
Several courts have since criticized the removals, and investigations by The Washington Post and others have since shown that many of those who disappeared into the prison had no criminal records, and that some were in the United States legally and were actively complying with immigration rules.
“The court joined several others in correctly recognizing the president cannot simply declare that there’s been an invasion and then invoke a wartime authority during peacetime to send individuals to a Gulag-type prison in El Salvador without even giving them due process,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt said in a statement. Gelernt argued on behalf of the immigrants in New York who are plaintiffs in the case.
A federal judge in South Texas appointed by Trump recently issued a permanent block on deportations under the act, for similar reasons. U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. in Brownsville rejected Trump’s assertions that the U.S. was being invaded by a Venezuelan gang to justify using the act, and permanently barred such removals from that district.
By halting the removals, Hellerstein said he hoped to prevent the placement in a prison outside the United States of people whose families and lawyers say they are not criminals. He noted how difficult such deportations are to reverse, even if they were in error.
Hellerstein cited the case of Kilmar Abrego García, an immigrant from El Salvador who lived for years in Maryland and was illegally deported to that country despite an immigration court order forbidding it. The U.S. and Salvadoran governments have so far refused to return him to the United States, sending conflicting messages about their power to do so.
Congress passed the Alien Enemies Act in 1798, as war with France loomed, to enable the United States to swiftly remove foreigners who might pose a threat to national security. It has only been invoked three times, and always during a military conflict, most recently during World War II.
Trump and his surrogates have sought to cast the millions of migrants who have arrived at the southern border in recent years seeking refuge or to work as an “invasion,” and said he had to invoke the act to quickly remove those who may pose a threat to public safety.
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• Sacchetti reported from Washington. Marianne LeVine in Washington contributed.