Why Courts Blocked Trump’s Use of Alien Enemies Act to Deport Venezuelans

President Donald Trump’s use of a 227-year-old wartime law to deport accused Venezuelan gang members to an El Salvador mega-prison without legal due process triggered lawsuits across the US. The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 allows a president to unilaterally detain or deport almost all citizens of an enemy nation during a war or invasion. Asserting the law in peacetime, as Trump did in a March proclamation, is unprecedented and tests the boundaries of executive power.

By and large the lawsuits have not gone well for Trump’s administration. Federal judges in New York, Colorado and Texas issued orders in recent months restricting the president’s use of the law. In a new setback, a federal appeals court ruled Sept. 2 that his use of it is not valid because the presence of Venezuelan gang members in the US does not amount to an invasion or “predatory incursion” of the US required under the statute.