You need to know about the Alien Enemy Act of 1798
President Trump wants to summon the alien enemy law of 1798. This is something you need to know about wartime laws.
A federal judge in Pennsylvania determined on May 13 that the United States could use alien enemy laws to quickly track the deportation of accused gang members.
Judge Stephanie Haynes of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania held that President Donald Trump has the authority to declare Venezuelan gangster Tren DeLagua a foreign terrorist organization and expel its members under alien enemy law. However, she criticized the administration’s practice of deporting people “within hours.”
Haynes, appointed by Trump during his first term, decided that the administration must give the administration a minimum of 21 days of notice and the opportunity to challenge rescue to avoid the possibility that non-gang members could be “mistaked from this country.”
She said that in the case of a Venezuelan man identified as ASR Haynes, ASR does not control whether he is a member of the gang, but people like him must give him the opportunity to challenge deportation.
Haynes requested that the government provide notices in Spanish and English and interpreters if necessary.
Lee Gererund, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing ASR, said he would appeal.
“We will strongly oppose the court’s decision to allow the government to continue this wartime power even in peacetime and appeal that aspect of the decision,” Gerrellund said.
Haynes’ ruling is against other federal court decisions regarding the Trump administration’s interpretation of the alien enemy law. The president summoned him in March as a legal justification to deport hundreds of men who accused his administration of being members of Tren de Lagua.
Federal judges in New York, Colorado and Texas opposed Trump’s use of law to deport Venezuelans.
Haynes noted in her ruling that her district has jurisdiction over petitions filed by the ASR despite being transported from an immigration and customs enforcement facility in Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania on April 15 to a Texas ice detention center.
The Trump administration deported gang members to El Salvador prisons under a deal in which the US would pay a $6 million dollar to a Central American country. That’s part of Trump’s hard-pressed approach to immigration.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
(Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones and Dietrich Knauth; Editing by Chris Reese, Nia Williams, and Leslie Adler)
