Appeals Court Blocks Trump's Use of Alien Enemies Act to Deport Venezuelans

[applegrove]

Appeals Court Blocks Trump’s Use of Alien Enemies Act to Deport Venezuelans

The ruling was a setback for the Trump administration on the mass deportation of immigrants, one of its domestic policy goals.

By John Yoon
Sept. 3, 2025, 1:57 a.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/us/politics/trump-alien-enemies-act-court.html?smid=url-share

A federal appeals court late Tuesday blocked President Trump from using an 18th-century wartime law to quickly deport a group of Venezuelan migrants, rejecting the administration’s argument that they were part of an “invasion” of the United States.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said it did not find that the law, the Alien Enemies Act, applied in the case of these migrants, who are accused by the Trump administration of being members of Tren de Aragua, a violent gang with roots in Venezuela. The court said in a 2-1 ruling that it found no “invasion or predatory incursion” by a foreign power.

The case is seen as a test by the government and the American Civil Liberties Union of how the courts would view Mr. Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, a powerful wartime statute that is rarely invoked, to deport migrants.

“This is an enormous victory for the rule of law,” said 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.”