Trump invokes 18th century Alien Enemies Act to declare invasion of Tren de Aragua, speed deportations
President Trump’s mission to stop migrants from entering the US illegally took a step further Saturday, as he signed off on a presidential action invoking a 1798 law called the Alien Enemies Act.
The president’s proclamation is meant to target members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan prison gang, and should accelerate deportations of Venezuelans 14 and older who aren’t U.S. citizens or those with green cards.
The proclamation’s language contends Venezuelan nationals are now “liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.”
Trump signed a presidential order in January, designating Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization, clearing a path for immigration officials to start rounding up its members for removal.
The gang, as well as El Salvadoran criminal organization MS-13, “present an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy,” the proclamation reads.
Prior to today, the Alien Enemies Act had only been utilized four times. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the last president to do so following the attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base, dragging the US into World War II.
The announcement from the White House followed an emergency hearing held Saturday, after a federal judge paused the deportation of five Venezuelan men under the order.
“Over the years, Venezuelan national and local authorities have ceded ever-greater control over their territories to transnational criminal organizations, including TdA,” Trump’s statement reads. “The result is a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States, and which poses a substantial danger to the United States.”
Trump’s administration has already appealed Saturday’s ruling.
Tren de Aragua’s origins can be traced back to a Venezuelan prison.
The violent gang’s members are said to have blended in with the millions of Venezuelans who’ve exited the South American nation over the last decade, hoping to start anew in America.
Trump has highlighted the gang’s crimes as validation for his push seeking tighter borders.
While Venezuela claims to have eradicated the gangbaners, Tren de Aragua members have been arrested all over the globe.
Through the proclamation, the Trump administration can fast-track deportations without going through normal criminal and immigration channels.
The White House said 300 people in US custody have been identified as members of the gang, and could soon be deported to El Salvador.
The move will be sure to come under legal scrutiny, as earlier Saturday a federal judge barred the removal of some Venezuelan migrants under the act.
Chief Judge James Boasberg barred the implementation of the act in the case of five migrants from the nation after the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward fought the move in federal court in Washington, DC.
With Post wires
