Appeals court won't lift order that barred Trump administration from
deportations under wartime law
[March 27, 2025]
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court refused Wednesday to lift an
order barring the Trump administration from deporting Venezuelan
migrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law.
A split three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia Circuit wouldn't block a March 15 order temporarily
prohibiting deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
Invoking the law for the first time since World War II, President Donald
Trump’s administration deported hundreds of people under a presidential
proclamation calling the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.
The Justice Department appealed after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg
blocked more deportations and ordered planeloads of Venezuelan
immigrants to return to the U.S. That did not happen.
Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on
behalf of five Venezuelan noncitizens who were being held in Texas.
The case has become a flashpoint amid escalating tension between the
White House and the federal courts.
Judges Karen LeCraft Henderson and Patricia Millett voted to reject the
government’s request to lift the order. Each wrote concurring opinions.
Judge Justin Walker, a Trump nominee, wrote a dissenting opinion.
Millett, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, said
Boasberg's order merely froze the status quo “until weighty and
unprecedented legal issues can be addressed” through an upcoming
hearing.
“There is neither jurisdiction nor reason for this court to interfere at
this very preliminary stage or to allow the government to singlehandedly
moot the Plaintiffs’ claims by immediately removing them beyond the
reach of their lawyers or the court.”
Henderson, who was nominated by Republican President George H.W. Bush,
said the court's ruling doesn't prevent the government from arresting
and detaining migrants under Trump's proclamation.
“Lifting the injunctions risks exiling plaintiffs to a land that is not
their country of origin,” she wrote. "Indeed, at oral argument before
this Court, the government in no uncertain terms conveyed that — were
the injunction lifted — it would immediately begin deporting plaintiffs
without notice."
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People hold a banner that reads in Spanish, "Migrating is not a
crime; sanctioning a people is," at a government-organized march to
protest the deportation from the U.S. of alleged members of the
Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, who were transferred to an El
Salvador prison, in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, March 18, 2025. (AP
Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Walker said the plaintiffs' claims belong in Texas, where they are
detained.
“The Government has also shown that the district court’s orders
threaten irreparable harm to delicate negotiations with foreign
powers on matters concerning national security,” he wrote.
Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman, whose legal
advocacy group also represents the plaintiffs, said Wednesday's
ruling is “an important step for due process and the protection of
the American people.”
“President Trump is bound by the laws of this nation, and those laws
do not permit him to use wartime powers when the United States is
not at war and has not been invaded to remove individuals from the
country with no process at all,” Perryman said in a statement.
Boasberg, the chief judge of the federal district court in
Washington, has vowed to determine whether the government defied his
order to turn planes around. The administration has invoked a “state
secrets privilege” and refused to give Boasberg any additional
information about the deportations.
Trump and his allies have called for impeaching Boasberg. In a rare
statement, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said that
“impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement
concerning a judicial decision.”
The Alien Enemies Act allows noncitizens to be deported without the
opportunity for a hearing before an immigration or federal court
judge.
Boasberg ruled that immigrants facing deportation must get an
opportunity to challenge their designations as alleged gang members.
His ruling said there is “a strong public interest in preventing the
mistaken deportation of people based on categories they have no
right to challenge.”
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