The ruling barred the use of the act in Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, which fall under the Fifth Circuit‘s purview. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department will almost certainly appeal to the wider appeals court or the Supreme Court.
Archiv: Alien Enemies Act (1798)
Supreme Court extends block on some Alien Enemies Act deportation flights
Over the dissents of conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, the emergency decision prevents authorities from removing the migrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as a legal challenge proceeds, a win for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is suing on the migrants’ behalf.
But the justices declined the ACLU’s additional request to leapfrog the lower courts to immediately take up the issue of whether President Trump can invoke the rarely used law outside of wartime.
Supreme Court blocks Trump from restarting Alien Enemies Act deportations
“Today’s ruling effectively extends the temporary freeze that the justices put on Alien Enemies Act removals from the Northern District of Texas back on April 19,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown Law. “Because lower courts have blocked use of the act in every other district in which the president has sought to invoke it, that means it’s effectively pausing all removals under the act until the 5th Circuit – and, presumably, the Supreme Court itself – conclusively resolves whether they’re legal and how much process is due if so.”
Trump Administration Live Updates: Supreme Court Temporarily Halts Deportations Under Alien Enemies Act
The Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Trump administration early Saturday from deporting another group of Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members under the expansive powers of a rarely invoked wartime law.
“The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court,” the court said in a brief, unsigned order that gave no reasoning, as is typical in emergency cases.
Supreme Court blocks, for now, new deportations under 18th century wartime law
The high court acted in an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union contending that immigration authorities appeared to be moving to restart removals under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The Supreme Court had said earlier in April that deportations could proceed only if those about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and were given “a reasonable time” to contest their pending removals.
ACLU Turns to Supreme Court Amid Fears of Imminent Alien Enemies Act Deportations
(April 18, 2025)
The ACLU on Friday sought emergency action from the U.S. Supreme Court to protect Venezuelan men in immigration custody at risk of swiftly being deported under President Donald Trump‘s proclamation invoking an 18th-century wartime law.
Judge finds probable cause to hold Trump administration in criminal contempt over removals of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote in a 46-page decision that the government‘s actions on March 15 „demonstrate a willful disregard“ for his order barring the government from transferring certain migrants into Salvadoran custody under the wartime Alien Enemies Act.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 24A931 DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL. v. J. G. G., ET AL. ON APPLICATION TO VACATE THE ORDERS ISSUED BY THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
J USTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE K AGAN and J USTICE J ACKSON join, and with whom J USTICE BARRETT joins as to Parts II and III–B, dissenting.
(…)
There is, of course, no ongoing war between the United States and Venezuela.
(…)
Congress requires the President to “mak[e] public proclamation” of his intention to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. §21. President Trump did just the opposite. In what can be understood only as covert preparation to skirt both the requirements of the Act and the Constitution’s guarantee of due process, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began moving Venezuelan migrants from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers across the country to the El Valle Detention Facility in South Texas before the President had even signed the Proclamation. ___ F. Supp. 3d ___, ___ 2025 WL 890401, *3 (D DC, Mar. 24, 2025). The transferred detainees, most of whom denied past or present affiliation with any gang, did not know the reason for their transfer until the evening of Friday, March 14, when they were apparently “pulled from their cells and told that they would be deported the next day to an unknown destination.”
B
Suspecting that the President had covertly signed a Proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act, several lawyers anticipated their clients’ imminent deportation and filed a putative class action in the District of Columbia. App. to Brief in Opposition To Application To Vacate 9a (App. to BIO). They contested that Tren de Aragua had committed or attempted the kind of “ ‘invasion’ ” or “ ‘predatory incursion’ ” required to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. Ibid. They also asserted that it would violate the Due Process Clause to deport their clients before they had any chance to challenge the Government’s allegations of gang membership. Id., at 26a. The plaintiffs did not seek release from custody, but asked the court only to restrain the Government’s planned deportations under the Proclamation. Id., at 9a, 29a.
In the early morning of March 15, the District Court informed the Government of the lawsuit and scheduled an emergency hearing. Despite knowing of plaintiffs’ claim
that it would be unlawful to remove them under the Proclamation, the Government ushered the named plaintiffs onto planes along with dozens of other detainees, all without any opportunity to contact their lawyers, much less notice or opportunity to be heard.
Supreme Court requires noncitizens to challenge detention and removal in Texas
Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned a 17-page dissent joined in full by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson and in part by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. She contended that her colleagues’ “decision to intervene in this litigation is as inexplicable as it is dangerous.”
Jackson wrote her own two-page dissent in which she lamented that the majority’s “fly-by-night approach to the work of the Supreme Court is not only misguided. It is also dangerous.”
The 1798 law at the center of the case is the Alien Enemies Act, which allows the president to detain or deport citizens of an enemy nation without a hearing or any other review by a court if either of two things occurs: Congress declares war, or there is an “invasion” or “predatory incursion.” The law has been invoked only three times – during the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II.
Supreme Court allows Trump to deport Venezuelans under wartime law, but only after judges’ review
The court’s action appears to bar the administration from immediately resuming the flights that last month carried hundreds of migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador. The flights came soon after President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II to justify the deportations under a presidential proclamation calling the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.
The majority said nothing about those flights, which took off without providing the hearing the justices now say is necessary.
Federal judge temporarily blocks Trump’s ability to quickly deport noncitizens under Alien Enemies Act
(March 15, 2025)
Earlier Saturday, the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which gives the president tremendous authority to target and remove undocumented immigrants, to speed up the deportations of migrants. The law is designed to be invoked if the US is at war with another country, or a foreign nation has invaded the US or threatened to do so.
Designating Cartels And Other Organizations As Foreign Terrorist Organizations And Specially Designated Global Terrorists
(b) Within 14 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall take all appropriate action, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to make operational preparations regarding the implementation of any decision I make to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, 50 U.S.C. 21 et seq., in relation to the existence of any qualifying invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States by a qualifying actor, and to prepare such facilities as necessary to expedite the removal of those who may be designated under this order.
What to know about Trump‘s immigration and border executive actions
The incoming administration will sign an executive order to designate drug cartels and other criminal organizations, including the U.S.-El Salvadoran-based MS-13 and Venezuela‘s Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist organizations or specifically designated global terrorists (SDGT).
An incoming White House official said Monday that the order will direct authorities to specifically remove members of Tren de Agua from the United States. And, citing the Alien Enemies Act enacted more than two centuries ago, the official said Tren de Agua has become an „irregular armed force of Venezuela‘s government conducting a predatory incursion and invasion into the United States.“
50 U.S.C. § 21 – U.S. Code – Unannotated Title 50. War and National Defense § 21. Restraint, regulation, and removal
Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies. The President is authorized in any such event, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed on the part of the United States, toward the aliens who become so liable; the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be subject and in what cases, and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those who, not being permitted to reside within the United States, refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any other regulations which are found necessary in the premises and for the public safety
Trump declares war on illegal immigrants, cartels from Mexico
Trump also declared that he will sign a Day 1 executive order designating cartels foreign terrorist organisations, allowing the government to take deadly measures against them.
„Under the orders I signed today, we will also be designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organisations. And by invoking the alien enemies act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to us, soil, including our cities and inner cities,“ Trump said.
A little-known law from 1798 could be a key part of Trump’s deportation plans
(November 14, 2024)
The text of the Alien Enemies Act says it can be invoked whenever:
– A war is declared between the US and “any foreign nation or government” OR
– “Invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government” AND
– “the President makes public proclamation of the event”