U.S. District Court Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. of the Southern District of Texas, a Trump appointee, ruled on May 1, 2025 that Trump illegally used the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) of 1798 to deport people from the U.S., saying the Act is only to be used against members of a hostile foreign nation during times of declared war or during a military invasion.
On January 20, 2025, Trump declared a “national emergency” at the southern border of the U.S. by falsely stating an “invasion” was occurring at the border. He claimed this allowed him to invoke the AEA to round up and deport Venezuelans without due process. The AEA can only be invoked after Congress declares the country is at war with a foreign country or that a foreign country is “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.”
Congress has not declared a war and no foreign country has invaded or carried out an incursion against U.S. territory, rendering Trump’s use of the AEA illegal.
Judge Rodriguez wrote,
“The President cannot summarily declare that a foreign nation or government has threatened or perpetrated an invasion or predatory incursion of the United States, followed by the identification of the alien enemies subject to detention or removal. … (“To be sure, a state of invasion under Article I, Section 10 does not exist just because a State official has uttered certain magic words.”) … 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 law does not support such a position.”
So far this year, Trump has deported 238 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, 137 of whom were illegally deported under the Alien Enemies Act. A CBS News investigation by 60 Minutes found about 75% of the people he deported had no criminal records. Without adequate evidence or any hearing, and often depending only on their tattoos, Trump claimed all of these people belonged to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and had them wrongly sent to a maximum security prison in El Salvador where they have little hope of getting out.
I don’t understand, please enlighten me: If you cross over Illegally and commit crimes, how are you expected due process? Especially when they make no attempt in becoming a U.S. citizen??? I’m sure I’ll get no reply.
It”s quite simple. Everyone is entitled to due process. It doesn’t matter if you’re here legally or illegally. Because due process is how you prove you are here legally or a citizen. Without due process, they could grab you off the street and ship you off to a foreign prison without ever giving you the chance to prove your citizenship. Is that what you want? Do you understand that if one person doesn’t get due process, then none of us have it.
Did you read her post? If you come over illegally, then you do not have citizenship. You might be an illegal immigrant or you might be in violation of your visa or you might be a defensive asylum seeker or you might be Tom Hanks in the Terminal movie or you might be something else. You can prove citizenship with your passport or birth certificate. Most illegal immigrants agree to self-deport. Some parents choose to take their U.S.-born citizen children with them. Those children are welcome back as citizens. Citizens are not swept up and shipped off directly to foreign prisons. They have a chance to prove their citizenship.
Scott likes to obfuscate all of this with due process. Everyone has an argument, according to an immigration advocate. Due process provides many opportunities to defer, deflect, and violate agreements made during said process. You can hide, get married, change identity, make children, get interested in school or interesting work, get a drivers license, get cancer, suffer from depression because someone was mean to you. Maybe even try some crime like sexual assault that will give you some jail time, but provide time to extend that due process so there is a path to citizenship after jail.
And if one person has been denied due process, then we all can be sent to GITMO or wherever? That’s rich. There are cases of US citizens denied entry home. When they are settled, some restitution is made. Regrettably, there probably are cases that never get resolved. This does not justify breaking a system of immigration control. No other country in the world does this. The UK is struggling with how to handle refugees. France watches them get on boats to cross the channel. Italy recues them from the Sea. Germany has closed the open border to Poland over refugees. Sweden is sending them back to their origin. Belarus has weaponized their borders with Syrian immigrants once and is in the process of repeating with Pakistanis. For myself, if I overstay a resident permit, they might let me talk to my US consulate, but they are putting me on a plane at my cost. That is my due process. Same for the rest of the world.
People who dupe immigrants unknowingly or facilitate those who do know are human traffickers, plain and simple. I used to think the only thing worse than Trump (who is slightly worse than Obama, Biden, and Harris) would be Vance. Go ahead and make immigration your stand in the next elections. You will get buried by the immigrants you fought so hard to bring here. The preposition stays.
John said: “Did you read her post? If you come over illegally, then you do not have citizenship. You might be an illegal immigrant or you might be in violation of your visa or you might be a defensive asylum seeker or you might be Tom Hanks in the Terminal movie or you might be something else. You can prove citizenship with your passport or birth certificate.”
And when, without due process, are you going to get a chance to prove citizenship with your passport or birth cirtificate? If you get picked up off the street, and you don’t have your passport or birth cirtificate with you, when are you going to get a chance to get those documents? You are too busy being sent to a foreign prison. And of course, for what crime are you being sent to that prison? You, like Abrego Garcia, haven’t been convicted of any crime, yet its off to prison anyway.
The Constitution does not say only citizens get due process. It says all people. If you don’t like that, then you need to change the Constitution, because right now you’re going against it.
Thanks for the reply, and requesting clarification. I do think the Constitution needs some changes, though it may in fact be the best of all. The most troubling part for me, today, is the Supreme Court interpretation that expanded executive powers which now leads us to this mess. True, that is another talk and let us talk about and respect the current Constitution along with the associated legislation and case law.
“Sarah Cole
May 3, 2025 at 1:51 pm
I don’t understand, please enlighten me: If you cross over Illegally and commit crimes, how are you expected due process? Especially when they make no attempt in becoming a U.S. citizen??? I’m sure I’ll get no reply.”
If someone is an admitted illegal immigrant and they have made no attempt for a legal path, then deport them and choose not to prosecute the perp for the alleged crime so as to invoke some time to create due process with respect to the committed crime. No charges, no claim for lack of due process. It does create angst for those who feel sorry for people who were picked up and deported for with no convictions. This happens most often, it is voluntary deportation. Most likely the case of the mother of the American born children in Louisiana. Nobody is complaining about her lack of due process because she never made an attempt for TPS. The important issue is this is not the time to accept defensive asylum applications,. I actually do not know if due process would allow someone to scream ‘I demand asylum’ thus freezing everything.
*** actually I have an update. I needed to understand that ICE was not hawking doctors offices and hospitals looking for people of color to toss on a plane. The mother is a Honduran. She applied for an proactive asylum entry (as opposed to defensive) under the Remain in Mexico Policy. So she missed her appointment because she claims to have been kidnapped in Mexico. I am going to go out on a limb and say she really needed to gt to American soil to have that baby. Anyway, her application for asylum was administratively canceled. And she did have the opportunity to have her child stay. Her husband contacted ICE and was told he could get the child, but he would be picked up too. The details CNN misses 😉
The Due Process clauses of the 5th and 14th Amendments does not include detainment on all American soil. Those checkpoints up to 100 miles inland or the ports and airports do not offer full protection because the immigrant has technically not entered the United States e.g. Ellis Island, and Plyler v Doe, 1982.
I guess you really want to address the opportunity to prove Citizenship after lawful . Again, I hope you are not arguing that given time to prove your legal is Citizenship is a good time to apply for defensive sylum.
ICE does not take you to an airport or a military base and send you to your ‘alleged’ home. If you claim to be a legal Citizen, USA is your home. And you don’t automatically go to El Salvador or Cuba while they sort it out. (not yet anyway)
If you don’t have your passport or birth certificate with you, you are given time to produce it. I don’t think you are racially profiled. The recent cases I have reviewed indicate there was some infraction that put you on a list. I can imagine ICE agents bouncing this list up against records of hospital admissions and maybe school records or tax and Medicaid record. You can probably thank DOGE for that. You will be able to prove Citizenship, though it could take some time in detention. There do exist fake passports and birth certificates as well. I assume this service is offered when you hire a premium smuggler. Just contact your local ACLU for referrals.
So that is how.
Now to be sure, thousands of American citizens have been turned away in the last 20 years. Many of those could complain of lack of due process. Some do, some sue, some win. It is sad that some are detained for too long because the system is clogged up.
My research show one Citizen who floated around Mexico for over a decade trying to ask to come home, but I guess he was mentally ill and did not say the right things. That was egregious and he eventually got a $350,000 settlement.
There are many more cases of Green Card or Visa holders turned away as well as the Student Visa disaster of recent.
I think most people should be aware they have a responsibility to themselves to be able to prove citizenship quickly. And also to vote, drive, buy beer.
Trump will be gone someday, and maybe it will all go back to how it was before. I doubt it. More likely we will all get implants, or some kind of biometric ID. Do it for the sake of cybersecurity.
So, Albrego Garcia. His identity and citizenship is not in question. Previously, he was in the USA detainment for some time, had immigration attorneys and had applied for defensive asylum. He did get stopped for an expired license. But all in all, Trump screwed the pooch on that one. He was following the rules he was asked. He should not have been deported without Due Process. The courts were right to weigh in. I guess Trump is testing the waters and this guys number came up. Mom sent him illegally to the USA when he was 16. Who knows if the administration is sitting on evidence of gang affiliation anticipating a Judicial branch showdown. I won’t try to defend this act.
In other news ..ICE is fining three Denver office cleaning businesses 8 million dollars for hiring illegal immigrants.
WHO THE HELL IS GONNA CLEAN THE TOILETS?
Also, it looks like Colorado taxpayers are going to be on the hook for the city of Denver’s largess, spending millions on the care and feeding of large numbers of people who sort of wandered across the border.
FAFO
🙂
I am glad that at least one judge has the sense of Democracy’s entity, ie rule of democratic society! I had a father that lived in Albania at the start of Worlds War 2, and so I know a bit about Tyrannical rule. hellish!
That Trump has an easy relations with Putin is frightening as hell.
Why does our Democracy not worry about Trump easy friendship with Putin?! Trump gets along with Putin because they are both Tyrannical heads of states, Countries!!!!!
Democracy is only functional when a competent and ethical leader is elected. Trump convinced voters and even the Supreme Court that he was one, resulting in him evading prosecution and jail and being reelected. Republican moderate congressmen won’t check him as long as he poses a threat to their Democracy based reelection.
Easy relations between Putin and Trump is frightening as hell, especially in my circumstance. I hope the relationship is falling apart as Trump is being played. Trump simply wants kind pages in history and a Nobel Peace Prize and the thrill of making deals to benefit his oligarchs. The damage done in 100 days might take 100 years to recover from.
The application of the Alien Enemies Act wasn’t well thought out without a complicit lockstep Supreme Court. It should have been repealed before but certainly after the shameful internment of Japanese American citizens. A prison in El Savador is also not an answer. If El Salvador citizens seek asylum in the USA, then El Salvador will not qualify as a Rwanda-type adjudicator once the prisoners are released. Of course, Trump might get us out of the UN and the ICJ court by then — an interesting outcome.
America was made great by immigrants like your father. Most immigrants come to America for that beacon on the hill and for opportunity. But if they do so in an illegal manner, that is a problem. Encouraging this by arbitrarily handing out Temporary Protective Status, and encouraging people to enter illegally, is equivalent to human trafficking. The legal branches must find a solution to our immigration problem.
But wait! there’s more…
“Rodriguez’s order clarifies that his permanent injunction does not prohibit administration officials from moving forward with removal proceedings under the Immigration and Nationality Act.”
In other words, due process. Which is what we have been demanding all along.