Federal appeals court maintains temporary block on Trump's use of Alien Enemies Act for deportations

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: CNN

Federal appeals court maintains temporary block on Trump's use of Alien Enemies Act for deportations

By Devan Cole, CNN
3 minute read
Updated 4:37 PM EDT, Wed March 26, 2025

A divided federal appeals court has maintained a temporary block on President Donald Trump's ability to use the Alien Enemies Act to quickly deport alleged members of a Venezuelan gang. ... The DC Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled 2-1 on Wednesday that a pair of lower-court orders blocking Trump's use of the sweeping wartime authority can stand while a legal challenge to the president's invocation of the law plays out.

Judge James Boasberg's order blocking use of the Alien Enemies Act for deportations has been at the center of an escalating political and legal controversy since it was issued on the evening of March 15. Two flights of people being deported took off during an emergency hearing and did not turn around, leading to ongoing questions of whether his court order was intentionally ignored. ... Since then, the Justice Department and Boasberg have gone back and forth over DOJ's refusal to provide more information about the flights, and Trump suggested that Boasberg be impeached. That led to a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts.

Trump had 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. ... Wednesday's appeals court ruling was unsigned. But Judges Patricia Millett, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, and Karen Henderson, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, wrote lengthy opinions explaining why they agreed with the court's decision.

Henderson leaned into the argument that allowing Trump to use the law -- even as the case proceeded -- "risks exiling plaintiffs to a land that is not their country of origin" where they would face torture in notorious prisons. ... "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," Henderson wrote. "Plaintiffs allege that the government has renditioned innocent foreign nationals in its pursuit against TdA. For example, one plaintiff alleges that he suffered brutal torture with 'electric shocks and suffocation' for demonstrating against the Venezuelan regime."

{snip}

This story is breaking and will be updated.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/26/politics/alien-enemies-act-trump-dc-circuit-court-of-appeals/index.html

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Hat tip, Joe.My.God.

https://www.joemygod.com/2025/03/appeal-court-upholds-block-on-alien-enemies-act/

Appeal Court Upholds Block On Alien Enemies Act
March 26, 2025

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. I listened to the oral argument in this appeal

I am NOT surprised by this ruling
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1016&pid=400692

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. Here is a link to the 93 page opinion

I was amazed and please to see a 93 page set of opinions. There are two separate concurrences in favor of the detainees.
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25870610/order-and-opinion-on-attempt-to-block-stay-on-aea-flights.pdf
Only 21 pages of this opinion are from the dissenting judge. I have not read all of the two concurring opinions ruling the right way but did skim the dissenting opinion.

I listened to the oral arguments in this case. I was NOT impressed with the DOJ attorney. The asshole DOJ attorney argued that the only proper cause of action in this matter would be individual habeas corpus actions filed for each individual detainee in the proper court where such plaintiff/detainee is located. Given that the DOJ/trump administration hid the location of these detainees, this would be impossible to do. This means that since the DOJ was successful in hiding the location of these plaintiffs/detainees and not giving these detainees any due process, these plaintiffs are out of luck and must stay in prison in El Salvador.

If the dissenting judge and the DOJ are correct, then the DOJ is being rewarded by hiding the location of the individual detainees and deporting these people before habeas cases could be filed. I find that position to be repugnant.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Deadline: Legal Blog-Appeals court rules against Trump motion to halt deportations block

The DOJ sought emergency relief from a federal appeals court to let officials summarily deport people under the Alien Enemies Act while litigation continues.
https://bsky.app/profile/msnbc.com/post/3llcnqrddlk2m

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/alien-enemies-act-appeals-court-ruling-trump-rcna197867

The D.C. Circuit panel split 2-1 on Wednesday against the administration, with each judge explaining themselves separately. Judges Karen LeCraft Henderson and Patricia Millet, appointed by Presidents George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama respectively, published concurring statements, while Trump appointee Justice Walker wrote a dissent saying the administration was entitled to relief pending appeal, reasoning in part that “sensitive matters of foreign affairs and national security are at stake.”

Henderson wrote that the government wasn’t entitled to relief at this early stage and that Boasberg entered the restraining orders “for a quintessentially valid purpose: to protect its remedial authority long enough to consider the parties’ arguments.” Millet added that the trial judge “has been handling this matter with great expedition and circumspection, and its orders do nothing more than freeze the status quo until weighty and unprecedented legal issues can be addressed through a soon-forthcoming preliminary injunction proceeding.”

Boasberg didn’t order deportations halted across the board; rather, he temporarily constrained Trump’s authority to summarily deport people under the rarely used act. It was invoked three times before in U.S. history, all during declared wars. The government can still deport people under other legal authorities.

Opposing the government’s attempt to upend Boasberg’s orders, plaintiff lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union wrote ahead of the hearing that Trump’s “invocation of the Act against a gang cannot be squared with the explicit terms of the statute requiring a declared war or invasion by foreign government.”

They called the implications of Trump’s argument “staggering,” writing that “if the President can designate any group as enemy aliens under the Act, and that designation is unreviewable, then there is no limit on who can be sent to a Salvadoran prison, or any limit on how long they will remain there.”

Boasberg is separately examining whether officials deliberately flouted his orders. Trump called for the judge’s impeachment, after which Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement generally condemning such calls, which the president and his allies, including Elon Musk, have made in response to court rulings against the administration.