Federal judge grants injunction, indefinitely bars Trump’s use of Alien Enemies Act in Colorado
A federal judge on Tuesday granted a preliminary injunction to indefinitely limit President Donald Trump’s administration from deporting Venezuelan immigrants in Colorado under the Alien Enemies Act.
In an at-times scathing order, U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney rejected the federal government’s arguments that the courts have no jurisdiction over Trump’s March proclamation, “Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of The United States by Tren de Aragua.”
“Federal courts and judicial review are a feature – not a defect – of this Nation’s constitutional structure … and simply because federal courts issue rulings unfavorable to the government is no basis, standing alone, to dispute their Constitutional authority or power,” Sweeney wrote.
The judge also asserted the government’s arguments were “nonsense” and “threadbare costumes” for the claim that the courts have no role and only the president can decide if the conditions of the Alien Enemies Act are met.
That claim “staggers,” Sweeney wrote. “It is wrong as a matter of law and attempts to read an entire provision out of the Constitution.”
Trump’s proclamation declares that Tren de Aragua is invading the United States and that all TdA members in the U.S. who are older than 14 and not lawful residents can be detained and removed as “alien enemies.”
But there are serious questions about how federal immigration officials are labeling people as alien enemies and a lack of due process for those accused of being Tren de Aragua members, the American Civil Liberties Union argued in the lawsuit against the Trump administration.
The two Venezuelan citizens who brought the lawsuit, identified in court records as D.B.U. and R.M.M., deny involvement with Tren de Aragua. R.M.M. fled Venezuela after two family members were killed by the gang, ACLU officials said in the lawsuit.
Sweeney also granted a request from the ACLU to turn the civil case into a class-action lawsuit, which means people represented by the lawsuit now can include all noncitizens in custody in Colorado who are subject to Trump’s proclamation, according to court records.
“The court has again affirmed what we have always known to be true: deporting and disappearing people without notice or due process is cruel, unconscionable, and unlawful,” ACLU of Colorado Legal Director Tim Macdonald said in a statement.
“We will keep fighting to ensure no one else is subjected to this nightmare instigated by the Trump administration. No one, including the federal government, is above the law,” Macdonald continued.
The U.S. attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday night.
A federal judge in New York on Tuesday also ruled that Trump improperly used the 18th century wartime law, which was last invoked during World War II, leading to the incarceration of Japanese Americans in internment camps.
The rulings come one week after a Trump-appointed judge in South Texas became the first in the nation to reject the president’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, also barring the administration from removing people from that region. None of the orders prevents deportations for reasons other than the act.
Tuesday’s rulings also represent the latest in a long line of judicial setbacks for the Trump administration’s effort to speed deportations of people in the country illegally, including an April U.S. Supreme Court ruling that people removed under the act have a right to contest their removal in court.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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