NEW YORK CITY, NY – After the U.S. Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) late Tuesday said they filed an emergency lawsuit against the President and his administration protesting the deportations of citizens under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA).
In partnership with The Legal Aid Society, the ACLU said the groups asked federal courts to pause removals under the Proclamation and reinstate the temporary restraining order enforced nationwide.
And, Wednesday, federal courts ruled some deportations won’t be allowed.
In its decision Monday night, according to the ACLU, the Supreme Court enabled the President’s attempts to elude immigration laws by enacting the AEA, a 200-year-old wartime act.
To challenge removals, the ACLU reported, victims of the Alien Enemies Act must have sufficient and meaningful reason to do so.
The ACLU and NYCLU filed a class petition for writ of habeas corpus and declaratory and injunctive relief, and a memorandum in support of a temporary restraining order against President Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.
According to the complaint, the Venezuelan Petitioners-Plaintiffs are currently detained by immigration custody and face deportation under the wartime act.
Despite the fact that the United States has only invoked the Alien Enemies Act three times in its history, and only in times of active warfare, the President’s Proclamation threatens to deport them imminently, reports the complaint.
Signed in secret, the Proclamation, said the ACLU, manipulates the language of the AEA, which authorizes the removal of noncitizens deemed as dangerous or predatory, according to the complaint.
While the President declares the Petitioners-Plaintiffs as violent noncitizens due to Venezuela’s affiliation with Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, the complaint explicitly states the U.S. cannot invoke the AEA outside of wartime against a country the U.S. is not in active warfare with.
Without legitimate justification, the complaint reports the President and his administration have deported 137 Venezuelans to an infamous prison in El Salvador. Since the Supreme Court lifted the injunction, according to the complaint, the President will continue deporting Venezuelans without judicial review.
The tandem memorandum asks the courts to reinstate the temporary restraining order against the invocation of AEA, protecting all Petitioners-Plaintiffs and ensuring the court is not devoid of jurisdiction.
Emphasizing that lower courts have issued a temporary block on Venezuelan deportation, the memorandum urges the Supreme Court to reinstate the protective order to prevent the arrest of all Petitioners-Plaintiffs in a notorious El Salvadorian prison.
Democrats hate the deportation of illegal immigrant criminals and gang members.
That is both not true and an over generalization Keith. A more accurate statement could be “Democrats hate the deportation of illegal immigrant criminals and gang members without due process in the American justice system.”
I will correct my statement.
Not all democrats are against the deportation of illegal immigrant criminals and gang members.
There are some sensible ones.
Your adjustment of the language does not address the due process issue. Why are you against due process?
In the absence of due process, it is not known if they are illegal, or criminals, or gang members.
Exactly
I’m not against deporting violent gang members. I’m against doing this without due process. Another example of Trump doing things that I may generally support, but doing so with a bulldozer and a chainsaw in a manner in which individual innocents are crushed in the machine. This is why I wished we had a sane choice against the Biden/Harris vibe. Or better yet two sane choices, or better yet, several sane choices.
But until we wake up and enact rank-choice voting, which means an uprising against the political duopoly, we will remain a country asheep.