Colorado Federal District Court Issues Additional Alien Enemies Act Ruling Against Trump
Earlier today, federal District Judge Charlotte Sweeney of the District of Colorado issued a ruling against the Trump Administration in an Alien Enemies Act (AEA) case. Trump has been trying to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as a tool for deporting Venezuelan migrants with virtually no due process. But 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.” In today’s decision, Judge Sweeney built on her own earlier ruling imposing a temporary restraining order (TRO) against AEA deportations in her district, and also a recent AEA ruling by a federal district court in Texas. Her new decision replaces the TRO with a longer-lasting preliminary injunction.
Like those other rulings, Judge Sweeney’s most recent opinion concludes that none of the requirements for invocation of the AEA has been met. The activities of the Tren de Aragua drug gang (cited by Trump as justification for using the AEA) don’t qualify as an “invasion” or a “predatory incursion,” and TdA is pretty obviously not a “nation or government” (Judge Sweeney is the sole federal judge to have addressed this latter issue, so far). Moreover, US intelligence agencies have concluded that TdA probably isn’t even acting at the direction of the Venezuelan government. It is a private criminal organization.
I have defended the view that “invasion” requires a military attack, in greater detail in my previous writings on the meaning of the term in the AEA and the Constitution. The two meanings are necessarily intertwined, as several federal courts have now recognized.
Judge Sweeney’s ruling reaches the right result, and is generally well-reasoned. But there is one regrettable aspect of her analysis, adapted from a recent rul
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