Appeals court rejects Trump bid to overturn Alien Enemies Act deportation block
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration's effort to lift U.S. District Judge James Boasberg's block on deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.
The appeals court heard arguments Monday over the Trump administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act last week to deport more than 200 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador without due process.
The Trump administration's attempt to remove alleged migrant gang members in that manner deprives the men of "even a gossamer thread of due process," Judge Patricia Millett wrote in her concurring opinion.
Disregarding their rights simply because they are unpopular or labeled terrorists, Millet wrote, would mean abandoning the "true mark of this great Nation."
"The true mark of this great Nation under law is that we adhere to legal requirements even when it is hard, even when important national interests are at stake, and even when the claimant may be unpopular," she wrote. "For if the government can choose to abandon fair and equal process for some people, it can do the same for everyone."
Trump last week invoked the Alien Enemies Act -- a wartime authority used to deport noncitizens with little-to-no due process -- by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a "hybrid criminal state" that is invading the United States. Boasberg temporarily blocked the president's use of the law to deport more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvador, calling the removals "awfully frightening" and "incredibly troublesome."
Boasberg ordered that the government turn around the two flights carrying the alleged gang members, but authorities failed to turn the flights around, saying they were already in international waters.
Judge Millet and Judge Karen Henderson -- who was first nominated to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan -- determined that Boasberg acted correctly and within his authority when he temporarily blocked any deportations under the AEA.
"The district court entered the TROs [temporary restraining orders] for a quintessentially valid purpose: to protect its remedial authority long enough to consider the parties' arguments," Judge Henderson wrote in a concurring opinion.
Judge Justin Walker -- a Trump appointee -- dissented from the majority because he said the noncitizens should have filed their case in Texas, where they were deported from, rather than Washington, D.C., adding that the lower court's decisions "threaten irreparable harm to delicate negotiations with foreign powers on matters concerning national security."
He added that the public interest favors "swiftly removing dangerous aliens" compared to letting the case move through a court that lacks venue over the matter.
"The district court here in Washington, D.C. -- 1,475 miles from the El Valle Detention Facility in Raymondville, Texas -- is not the right court to hear the Plaintiffs' claims. The Government likely faces irreparable harm to ongoing, highly sensitive international diplomacy and national-security operations," he wrote.
Judge Millet pushed back on Walker's claim that the men should have used habeas corpus to challenge their deportations in a Texas court, writing that such an approach is a "phantasm" of due process because the Trump administration would have removed the men before they could even file a claim.
"The government's removal scheme denies Plaintiffs even a gossamer thread of due process, even though the government acknowledges their right to judicial review of their removability," she wrote.
In a statement to ABC News, attorney Lee Gelernt, who argued the case for the ACLU, hailed the ruling, saying it "stops the immediate removal of hundreds of individuals, without any due process, to a notorious prison in a foreign country, based on the misuse of a centuries-old wartime authority.”
ABC News' Laura Romero contributed to this report.
