Donald Trump has invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport five Venezuelan nationals from the US.
Civil liberties organizations have accused Trump of invoking the 1798 act unlawfully during peacetime to accelerate mass deportations and sidestep immigration law.
Hours later, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s administration from using the act to carry out its intended deportations of the Venezuelans.
Boasberg’s decision comes in response to a lawsuit filed the same day by the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward.
The organizations charge that the Trump administration unlawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act.
The 227-year-old law is designed to primarily be used in wartime, and only Congress has the authority to declare a war.
Trump has been building his case for invoking the act for years by characterizing the influx of migrants at the southern border as an “invasion”. »
