Federal District Court Rules Against Trump in Alien Enemies Act Case
Yesterday, Judge Charlotte Sweeney of the federal District Court for the District of Colorado issued an important ruling against the Trump Administration, involving attempted deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The Act can only be used to detain and deport immigrants in the event of a declared war, or an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” perpetrated by a “foreign nation or government.” Judge Sweeney ruled (correctly) that none of these preconditions have been met. She also blocked deportation and transfer of the Venezuelan migrant plaintiffs detained in her district, and applied the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling requiring that “AEA detainees must receive notice… they are subject to removal under the Act” and that “[t]he notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.”
Here is an excerpt from her discussion of the requirements of the AEA:
Petitioners’ first argument…., proceeds from a straightforward premise. The President’s authority under the Proclamation is “vested” under the Act. TheAct demands, as a “statutory requirement,” an “invasion or predatory incursion….” And because the Act’s “text and history” use these terms “to refer to military actions indicative of an actual or impending war”—not “mass illegal migration” or “criminal activities”—the Act cannot sustain the Proclamation… The Court agrees with Petitioners….
The term ‘invasion’ was a legal term of art with a well-defined meaning at the Founding.” J.G.G. v. Trump, No. 25-5067, 2025 WL 914682, at *8 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 26, 2025) (Henderson, J., concurring); see also id. (defining “invasion as a “‘[h]ostile entrance upon the right or possessions of another; hostile encroachment,’ such as when ‘William the Conqueror invaded England'”) (quoting Samuel Johnson, Invasion, sense 1, A DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (4th ed. 1773)); (reciting second dictionary defining “invasion as a “‘hostile entrance into the possession of another; particularly the entrance of a
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