A federal judge has claimed that President Donald Trump didn’t meet the requirements to cite the Alien Enemies Act to deport members of a violent criminal gang that has been linked to the Venezuelan government.
The judge, Fernando Rodriquez, said, among other things, that Trump did not show that Tren de Aragua members were moving into the U.S. at the behest of the Venezuelan government, a needed condition.
Yet published reports have documented that, “The FBI assesses that some Venezuelan government officials ‘likely facilitate’ the migration of members of the violent gang Tren de Aragua from Venezuela to the United States to advance the Maduro regime’s objective of undermining public safety in the U.S.”
The Fox News report confirmed, “A senior administration official exclusively shared with Fox News Digital Wednesday unclassified portions of the FBI’s classified intelligence assessment of the Venezuelan government’s relationship with Tren de Aragua.”
Trump already has designated TdA and other gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.
He cited the AEA in order to start deporting members of that gang.
Fox reported, “Fox News Digital has learned that the FBI assesses that some Venezuelan government officials are likely using Tren de Aragua members as proxies for the Maduro regime in an effort to destabilize Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and the United States.”
However, the judge claimed, “Allowing the president to unilaterally define the conditions when he may invoke the AEA and then summarily declare that those conditions exist, would remove all limitations to the Executive Branch’s authority under the AEA, and would strip the courts of their traditional role of interpreting congressional statutes to determine whether a government official has exceeded the statute’s scope.”
The Washington Examiner reported that the judge’s ruling likely will be appealed, and likely will be overturned.
It may be of little import, ultimately, however.
It’s because the judge ruled, “Trump could still deport Venezuelan migrants detained in southern Texas using other, more routine authorities.”
The Trump administration has explained that the courts actually don’t have the authority to weigh in on the president’s decision to use the AEA.
The ruling came in a lawsuit from three Venezuelan nationals who are being protected by the American Civil Liberties Union, which said the three were wrongly accused of being gang members.
The fight is one of several that leftists have brought against Trump in his agenda to secure the nation’s borders and remove illegal aliens, especially criminal illegal aliens, from within its borders.
The Examiner reported Art Arthur, resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, noted courts generally have given deference to executive decisions “when an invasion or threat exists.”
“Most American press outlets don’t really understand Tren de Aragua, or they put it in the same bucket as MS-13,” Arthur said, noting the gang already has established strongholds in Colombia, Chile, and Brazil.