An Intelligence Memo Casts Further Doubt on Trump’s Nonsensical Definition of ‘Alien Enemies’
In a March 15 proclamation, President Donald Trump declared that suspected members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua were “alien enemies” subject to immediate deportation. He invoked the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), a rarely used, 227-year-old law that applies when “there is a declared war” between the United States and a “foreign nation or government” or when a “foreign nation or government” has “perpetrated, attempted, or threatened” an “invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.”
To support that dubious interpretation of the AEA, Trump averred that Tren de Aragua (TDA) is “is closely aligned with” the Venezuelan government. He said the gang was “undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States…at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the [Nicolas] Maduro regime in Venezuela.” A newly revealed memo from the National Intelligence Council (NIC) casts doubt on those assertions. Those claims, in any event, do not validate Trump’s highly implausible reading of the AEA, which a federal judge in New York rejected on Tuesday, agreeing with an earlier decision by a federal judge in Texas.
The declassified April 7 memo, which the Freedom of the Press Foundation obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, says “Maduro regime leadership probably sometimes tolerates TDA’s presence in Venezuela, and some government officials may cooperate with TDA for financial gain.” But it adds that “the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States.”
The U.S. intelligence community, which includes the CIA, the FBI, and the National Security Agency, “bases this judgment on Venezuelan law enforcement actions demonstrating the regime treats TDA as a threat,” the memo says, describing “an uneasy mix of cooperation and confrontation” rather than the “top-down directives” that characterize “the regime’s ties to other armed groups.” It adds that “the decentralized makeup of TDA” would “make such a relationship logistically challenging.”
The NIC says “most” of the intelligence community views “intelligence indicating that regime leaders are directing or enabling TDA migration to the United States” as “not credible.” While “FBI analysts” agree with that overall assessment, it adds, they believe “some Venezuelan government officials facilitate TDA members’ migration from Venezuela to the United States.”
Contradicting Trump’s assertion that TDA is “closely aligned” with the Venezuelan government and acts at its “direction,” the memo notes that “Ve
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