Judge bars federal government from using Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans from Colorado

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Source: CPR News

A Colorado federal judge has barred the federal government from deporting a group of roughly 100 Venezuelans detained at Aurora’s GEO immigration detention center to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act until they either complete their cases in immigration court or higher courts weigh in.

The ACLU of Colorado sued the Trump administration on behalf of two Venezuelan men – plus more than 100 other Venezuelans detained – asking they not be deported to a Salvadoran prison known for human rights abuses and disappearances.

District Judge Charlotte Sweeney granted a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration last month. The administration appealed that decision, and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the request, saying the questions raised about the Alien Enemies Act will likely be taken up by the high court.

In a 25-page ruling issued Tuesday afternoon granting a preliminary injunction in the case, Sweeney took aim at several of the government’s arguments that they should be immune from judicial review on the Alien Enemies Act because it’s an executive power privilege.

“This argument runs afoul of the separation-of-power principles respondents purport to value,” she wrote. “Federal courts and judicial review are a feature—not a defect—of this Nation’s constitutional structure. And simply because federal courts issue rulings unfavorable to the government is no basis, standing alone, to dispute their constitutional authority or power.”

The federal judge was incredulous that the federal government pushed back on judicial branch authority overall.

“Respondents’ arguments are threadbare costumes for their core contention: As for whether the Act’s preconditions are satisfied, that is the President’s call alone; the federal courts do not have a role to play,” she wrote. “That sentence staggers.”



Read more: https://www.cpr.org/2025/05/06/judge-bars-alien-enemies-act-deportation-colorado/

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This is the third court (second today) to rule on the Alien Enemies Act

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Here is a link to the ruling

Link to tweet

This opinion will be fun reading . For example this opinion cites one of the other cases that have ruled on these issue
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cod.243061/gov.uscourts.cod.243061.52.0_1.pdf

At least one other court has subsequently confronted the question Respondents
pose—what does “invasion” mean?—and rejected virtually identical arguments now
advanced by Respondents in their instant opposition. See J.A.V., 2025 WL 1257450, at
*15 (“[N]umerous sources contemporaneous to the enactment of the [Act] [are sources]
in which ‘invasion’ and ‘predatory incursion’ expressly reference or imply military action.”).
The Court finds J.A.V.’s analysis persuasive and adopts it, bolstering its prior conclusion
in the TRO order that “invasion” demands military action. See D.B.U., 2025 WL 1163530,
at *10. And as to the same definition Respondents cite here—that “invasion” merely
means “hostile entrance”—J.A.V. did not equivocate: “Respondents identify no other
historical records supporting their proposed meaning of ‘invasion,’ and they offer no
sources from the nation’s founding era as to the ordinary meaning of ‘predatory
incursion.’” Id. The Court finds Respondents’ briefing here likewise lacking.

Accordingly, the Court agrees with Petitioners—consistent with Founding-era
definitions and historical sources, including those cited in Petitioners’ preliminary
injunction motion—that the word “invasion” as used in the Act “contemplate[s] military
action.” D.B.U., 2025 WL 1163530, at *10 (citations omitted); J.A.V., 2025 WL 1257450,
at *16 (“The historical records that the parties present, supplemented by the additional
records that the Court reviewed, demonstrate that at the time of the [Act’s] enactment,
the plain, ordinary meaning of ‘invasion’ was an entry into the nation’s territory by a
military force or an organized, armed force, with the purpose of conquering or obtaining
control over territory.”) (emphasis added); ECF No. 45 at 18–21.

[republianmushroom]

2. Thank you Judge Sweeney.