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A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelans, ruling that the wartime-era law does not justify mass removals of migrants.
The order, issued by US District Judge James Boasberg on Saturday evening, halts deportations for 14 days as the legal battle unfolds.
Trump had invoked the law earlier that day, declaring that members of the Tren de Aragua crime gang were “conducting irregular warfare” against the United States. Under his executive order, all Venezuelan citizens aged 14 and older, suspected of gang ties, and lacking legal residency status were to be “apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed” as enemy aliens. However, the judge swiftly intervened, ordering that any planes carrying deportees be turned back.
The Alien Enemies Act—last used during World War II to intern Japanese-Americans—allows the government to detain and deport individuals from hostile nations without due process during wartime. However, the US is not at war with Venezuela, making Trump’s invocation of the law unprecedented.
At a hearing on Saturday, Judge Boasberg noted that the terms “invasion” and “predatory incursion” in the law historically referred to acts by enemy nations, not criminal gangs. This, he suggested, weakened Trump’s legal argument.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other rights groups had already filed lawsuits to block the order before Trump’s proclamation was even issued. The case is now expected to move through the legal system, potentially reaching the Supreme Court.
Trump’s decision to invoke the Alien Enemies Act bypasses existing immigration laws, which already grant the president the power to deport gang members. Critics argue that using the wartime law removes the need for proof or due process, raising serious constitutional concerns.
“He wants to bypass any need to provide evidence or to convince a judge that someone is actually a gang member before deporting them,” said Katherine Yon Ebright of the Brennan Centre for Justice. “The only reason to invoke such a power is to try to enable sweeping detentions and deportations of Venezuelans based on their ancestry, not on any gang activity that could be proved in immigration proceedings.”
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