Venezuela’s use of the Alien Enemies Act was put on hold by a federal judge

The top 5 immigration changes from Trump’s first 100 days: Why the 14th amendment triggered the First Family Reconstruction in the U.S.

Trump’s overhaul of the U.S. immigration system has caused border crossings to plummet during the first months of 2025. There is a ban on asylum access that was signed into law on January 20.

If Trump’s moves on asylum and refugees are implemented, they will mean that immigrants who were previously allowed into the U.S. under various programs are now at risk of being deported.

Those immigrants include Haitians fleeing gang warfare, Afghans left behind by the United States’ hasty military pullout, Venezuelans escaping dictatorship and economic collapse, and Ukrainians from Russian-occupied areas.

The moves have been challenged in courts, and migrants have sued over the administration’s cancellation of asylum appointments through the CBP One mobile app.

Those seeking asylum used the app to schedule appointments in the U.S. The app was used by the administration to encourage people to self-deport.

“I’m not sure what a member of the bar would say that this is a constitutional order,” Coughenour said. “It’s hard to comprehend.”

Judge John Coughenour, a Reagan appointee in Washington state, was the first to block Trump’s executive order, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.”

Attorneys general from 22 states, the ACLU and a group of pregnant mothers and immigration advocates have all sued the Trump administration to stop this executive order from taking effect.

The 14th amendment, which was upheld after the Civil War, provides automatic citizenship to people who were born in the United States. Trump has sought to reinterpret that “blood right” by denying citizenship to people born to parents without legal status or temporarily in the United States.

The 14th Amendment, which codified birthright citizenship in 1868, says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

Source: Here are the top 5 immigration changes from Trump’s first 100 days

The case of Abrego Garcia: an immigration judge’s warning against his deportation to El Salvador, despite a 2019 immigration court ruling

Abrego is free from a criminal record. He originally entered the U.S. illegally, but an immigration judge ruled in 2019 that he could not be deported to El Salvador because his life would likely be endangered if he were to return.

So far, the Justice Department has stonewalled U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who ordered the Trump administration to explain what it has done, and plans to do, to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.

In early April, an immigration judge at the Louisiana facility where he is being held ruled that he can be deported because she didn’t have the power to question his decision, which he outlined in a two-page memo. She suggested that she could order Khalil deported to Algeria, where he is a citizen, or to his birth country, Syria. Khalil’s lawyers are appealing.

If the secretary of state discovers that a non American is threatening the interests of foreign policy, they can remove them from the country. The goal of fighting antisemitism was undermined by Khalil’s activism. The claim has not been substantiated by the administration.

His deportation probably won’t happen soon for another reason. A federal judge hearing a lawsuit about the legality of the government’s actions has ordered them not to remove him from the country.

Concerns about adequate due process and what legal protections noncitizens are afforded are at the heart of the case of the 29-year-old Maryland man the White House concedes was mistakenly deported in March to a megaprison in El Salvador — despite a 2019 court order barring his removal.

A federal appeals court in Virginia pressed the administration to do more to release Abrego Garcia. Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a conservative Reagan crony who sits on the U.S. Fourth Circuit, said the government’s argument should be shocking to judges, because they have an intuitive sense of liberty.

Abrego Garcia was driving home from work as a construction laborer with his 5-year-old son in the car when ICE officers pulled him over. He was arrested. A few days later, Abrego Garcia was put on a flight alongside alleged Tren de Aragua gang members and deported.

There are serious concerns about the free speech and due process of a 30-year-old Syrian born graduate student who was in the US legally. The government is seeking to deport him for his pro-Palestinian activism on Columbia University’s campus in 2024.

Source: Here are the top 5 immigration changes from Trump’s first 100 days

A High Court Action Against the Use of Wartime Power to Deport a Class of alleged Tren de Aragua Members

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, writing that the ruling granted “unprecedented and legally questionable relief without giving the lower courts a chance to rule.”

The American Civil Liberties Union filed an emergency appeal with the high court about a group of people who were going to be deported and were not given any notice or opportunity to be heard. The justices, in an unsigned order late at night, ruled that the government should not “remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court.”

The high court in early April temporarily upheld the government’s use of the act to deport alleged Tren de Aragua members, with an important caveat: They had to be provided with adequate notice and the opportunity to contest their detentions and deportations on a case-by-case basis.

In late March, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld Boasberg’s order and denied the White House’s use of the wartime authority by a vote of 2 to 1. The lack of opportunity for gang members to contest cases was cited by JudgePatricia Millett, an appointees of former President Barack Obama. The government’s removal scheme does not allow for a gossamerthread of due process, Millett wrote. “No notice, no hearing, no opportunity — zero process — to show that they are not members of the gang, to contest their eligibility for removal under the law, or to invoke legal protections against being sent to a place where it appears likely they will be tortured and their lives endangered.”

Anticipating Trump’s invocation of the act, the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward sued to temporarily stop the administration from deporting five Venezuelan men. Later the same day, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., issued an order barring the government from using the act to deport anyone. He ordered officials to immediately turn around the three deportation planes already in the air.

The crackdown has catalyzed fear and confusion across migrant communities, sparked street protests and spurred a historic showdown between the executive and judicial branches over the constitutionality and legality of an effort that has raised fundamental questions about due process and freedom of speech.

Trump’s supporters strongly support the moves. According to a latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, an overwhelming amount of Republicans approve of the way Trump is handling immigration.

But the partisan divide on the issue is extreme: The same NPR/PBS News/Marist poll shows that only 11% of Democrats, and about a third of independents, approve of his immigration actions.

NPR has carefully tracked the biggest immigration stories, policy changes and legal challenges. The immigration landscape in the second term of Trump’s presidency has been changed by five issues.

Trump’s use of an obscure 18th-century war powers act to expand and expedite deportations raises concerns about potential violations of the constitutional right to due process as outlined in the Fifth Amendment.

Since it was enacted in 1798, the Alien Enemies Act only allowed the president to detain or remove people from the US when there was an “invasion” of the United States.

The act was invoked by Trump to target the alleged members of the gang. He says the group is fighting against the territory of the U.S. The directive authorizes the expedited removal of all Venezuelan citizens 14 and older who are deemed to be members of the organization and who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.

The judge wrote that Trump’s invocation was contrary to the plain meaning of the statute’s terms.

Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement that a court ruled that the president can’t call for war in the United States without congressional approval. “This is a critically important decision that prevents more people from being sent to the notorious CECOT prison (a maximum security prison in El Salvador).”

When the Alien Enemies Act was enacted, Judge Rodriguez concluded that the ordinary meaning of “invasion” required a military incursion. He found that the criminal activities of Tren de Aragua members described in the Proclamation, while harmful, did not constitute an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” as understood under the Act.

The Proclamation doesn’t make any reference to a threat to the United States from an armed group entering the country at the direction of Venezuela, according to Judge Rodriguez.

The Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. If the Trump administration appeals the decision, it would go to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals, considered one of country’s most conservative courts. The case could be heard by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has already ruled the Trump administration can remove migrants under the Alien Enemies Act, but with a caveat. Migrants who have been accused of being gang members should have time to challenge their removal from the country. The high court did not specify a length of time.