Another judge blocks Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants

Another federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s use of deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, saying the wartime power shouldn’t be used.

Another federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s use of deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, saying the wartime power shouldn’t be used. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said the administration is indefinitely blocked from removing migrants from the Southern District of New York under the act, which gives detainees little due process. The judge said migrants could still be deported via more traditional immigration authorities. Hellerstein, in his 22-page opinion Tuesday, wrote that the use of the Alien Enemies Act violates constitutional protections that give people in the US due process. “Petitioners have not been given notice of what they allegedly did to join (the gang Tren de Aragua), when they joined, and what they did in the United States, or anywhere else, to share or further the illicit objectives of the TdA,” Hellerstein wrote. Yet the Trump administration has used the alleged associations of Venezuelan migrants with Tren de Aragua as a reason to send them to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison, he noted. Hellerstein’s decision is the second time in two weeks a federal judge has harshly condemned the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act and adds to a trail of court decisions that has cut back the harsh and fast-moving deportation approach that’s become a centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s policy toward immigrants.