Trump invokes 18th-century law to declare invasion by gangs, speed deportations

U.S. President Donald Trump. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Claiming the United States was being invaded by a Venezuelan gang, President Donald Trump on Saturday (March 16, 2025) invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a sweeping war-time authority that allows the President broader leeway on policy and executive action, to speed up mass deportations of people in the country illegally — potentially pushing his promised crackdown on immigration into higher gear.

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Mr. Trump’s declaration targets Tren de Aragua, contending it is a hostile force acting at the behest of Venezuela’s government. The declaration comes the same day that a federal judge in Washington barred the administration from deporting five Venezuelans under the expected order, a hint at the legal battle brewing over Mr. Trump’s move.

The federal judge blocked the Mr. Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport the five Venezuelans, kicking off a blizzard of litigation over the controversial move even before the president announced it.

Mr. Trump had widely signalled he would invoke the 1798 Act, last used to justify the internment of Japanese-American civilians during World War 2.

On Saturday, the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward filed an extraordinary lawsuit in federal court in Washington contending the order would identify a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, as a “predatory incursion” by a foreign government and seek to deport any Venezuelan in the country as a member of that gang, regardless of the facts.

James E Boasberg, chief judge of the DC Circuit, agreed to implement a temporary restraining order preventing the deportation for 14 days under the act of the five Venezuelans who are already in immigration custody and believed they were being moved to be deported. Boasberg said his order was “to preserve the status quo”. Boasberg scheduled a hearing for later in the afternoon to see if his order should be expanded to protect all Venezuelans in the United States.

Hours later, the Mr. Trump administration appealed the initial restraining order, contending that halting a presidential act before it has been announced would cripple the executive branch.

If the order were allowed to stand, “district courts would have licence to enjoin virtually any urgent national-security action just upon receipt of a complaint”, the Justice Department wrote in its appeal.

It said district courts might then issue temporary restraining orders on actions such as drone strikes, sensitive intelligence operations or terrorist captures or extraditions. The court “should halt that path in its tracks”, the department argued.

The unusual flurry of litigation highlights the controversy around the Alien Enemies Act, which gives Mr. Trump vast power to deport people in the country illegally. It lets him bypass some protections of normal criminal and immigration law. But it would face immediate challenges along the lines of Saturday’s litigation because it has previously only been used during wartime.

The law requires a formal declaration of war before it can be used. But immigration lawyers were alarmed by a flurry of activity on Friday night.

“Last night, it appears the government was preparing to deport a number of Venezuelans they had no legal authority to deport,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, an immigration lawyer in Los Angeles who filed two petitions to block deportations that night.