Trump's Alien Enemies Act deportations face legal test in Colorado federal court
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a rare weekend ruling temporarily halting the Trump administration's plan to deport more Venezuelan migrants under a seldom-used wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act.
The decision came as
mass protests continued across the country
denouncing the Trump administration's immigration policies. The administration is urging the court to reconsider its decision blocking the deportations.
The president has invoked the
Alien Enemies Act
, a centuries-old law allowing the executive branch to detain or deport noncitizens deemed dangerous. Last month, the administration used the law to send more than 200 migrants to a
prison in El Salvador
.
Now, El Salvador's president has proposed exchanging the deported migrants for political prisoners held in Venezuela.
In Denver, a federal court
recently barred the removal of any noncitizens within Colorado
who are or will be subject to the Alien Enemies Act. Some of those previously deported from Colorado have already been sent to the El Salvador prison, according to their attorneys.
At issue is what kind of legal rights migrants have to challenge the government's allegations before they are removed from the U.S.
Mr. Trump has said the United States is facing an "invasion" by the Tren de Aragua gang and that he has the authority to use the 1798 law. The act was last invoked during World War II, including in Colorado, to hold Japanese Americans at internment camps, including
Camp Amache
.
"If you think of internment camps during World War II in the United States, that's the kind of framework that we're looking at in terms of how this law has been used in the past," Laura Lunn, an immigrant advocacy lawyer with the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, said.
The legal battle has triggered a series of emergency filings over the weekend after the Supreme Court bumped a case out of U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., saying it needed to be filed in Texas and other states from which people are being deported.
A high-stakes hearing in Denver concluded Monday morning. U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney said she wouldn't rule on the case for 24 hours but during that hearing, attorneys for the ACLU and Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network said 11 people have been deported from Colorado to El Salvador and that about 85% of people being held in the Aurora ICE Processing Center have not yet been able to retain legal counsel, which those groups argue is a violation of their due process rights.
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