Advocates urge judge to bar Alien Enemies Act expulsions of migrants they say face imminent deportation

Advocates on Friday filed an emergency motion asking a federal judge in Texas to bar the Trump administration from deporting a group of Venezuelan migrant detainees they said are at risk of being expelled under the Alien Enemies Act, the 18th-century wartime law at the center of a legal battle.

The American Civil Liberties Union asked U.S. District Court Judge James Wesley Hendrix to issue a temporary restraining order preventing officials from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan men detained at an immigration detention center in Ansen, Texas, located within his judicial district.

The ACLU said it heard from lawyers and relatives of some of the men held at the Ansen detention facility that their clients and loved ones had been given notices telling them they were slated to be deported under the wartime law. The organization, relying on declarations from lawyers and advocates, said the men were accused of being members of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang President Trump has made into a focal point of his crackdown on illegal immigration.