Judge: Trump Overstepped on Wartime Deportations

The administration’s attempts to deport Venezuelan migrants were thwarted when a Trump-appointed federal judge decided Thursday that the president had overreached himself by using the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport them, permanently prohibiting such removals in South Texas. U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. in Brownsville, Texas, rejected Trump’s claims that a Venezuelan gang was invading the United States in order to use the act to deport migrants without a hearing in a 36-page decision.  The president’s move “exceeds the scope of the statute,” according to him. More than 130 immigrants, many of whom had been held in South Texas, were summarily removed to El Salvador by officials in March under the statute.  Rodriguez countered that there was no proof of an invasion and that the proclamation circumvented the Immigration and Nationality Act, an existing immigration law that outlines the correct removal procedures, usually including a hearing.   Temporary restraining orders obtained by federal judges in New York, Pennsylvania, and Colorado prevent the government from deporting immigrants in their respective judicial districts in accordance with the wartime statute.

Fuente: The Washington Post