Federal court blocks Trump's removal of Tren de Aragua members under wartime enemies law

A federal appeals court on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from using the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act to remove alleged Venezuelan gang members from the U.S.

A federal appeals court blocked the Trump administration Tuesday from using an 18th-century wartime law to remove people alleged to be Venezuelan gang members from the United States.

A panel of the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to block President Donald Trump's deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, ruling the administration's claim that members of Venezuela's Tren de Aragua gang are part of a warlike invasion is not true.

"Our analysis leads us to GRANT a preliminary injunction to prevent removal because we find no invasion or predatory incursion," the panel's majority wrote.

Officers escort alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua recently deported by the U.S. at a detention center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 16.Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidencia via Reuters fileAmerican Civil Liberties Union immigrants’ rights lawyer Lee Gelernt, who represented plaintiffs before the Supreme Court and the 5th Circuit, said in a statement Tuesday night that the ruling is just.

“The Trump administration’s attempt to use a wartime statute during peacetime to regulate immigration was rightly shut down by the court," Gelernt said. "This is a tremendously important victory reining in the administration’s view that it can simply declare an emergency without any oversight by the courts.”