US appeals court blocks Trump move to use Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans

A federal appeals court on Tuesday night blocked President Donald Trump from using an 18th-century wartime law to swiftly deport a group of Venezuelan migrants, rejecting the administration’s claim that the migrants constituted an “invasion” of the United States.

According to The New York Times report_,_ in a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Alien Enemies Act did not apply in this case.

The Trump administration had argued that the migrants were members of Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan gang, but the court found no evidence of an “invasion or predatory incursion” by a foreign power.

The case has drawn national attention as a legal test of the government’s attempt to use the rarely invoked Alien Enemies Act — a powerful statute from the 1790s — to justify mass deportations.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups closely monitored the ruling as a potential precedent for future immigration policy.

“This is an enormous victory for the rule of law,” The New York Times quoted Lee Gelernt, a lawyer who argued the case for the A.C.L.U., “making clear that the President cannot simply declare a military emergency and then invoke whatever powers he wants.”

In April, the Supreme Court temporarily halted the Trump administration’s efforts to deport a group of Venezuelan migrants, allowing legal challenges to the former president’s use of wartime authority to continue in the lower courts — including the case decided Tuesday by the Fifth Circuit.

In their ruling, the Fifth Circuit judges clarified that their injunction applies solely to the use of the Alien Enemies Act.

They emphasised that the decision does not prevent the government from pursuing other lawful avenues to remove foreign terrorists from the United States.

With inputs from agencies