Trump judge bars deportations under 1798 law

Protesters call for return of migrants sent to notorious El Salvador prison

'The president cannot simply declare there’s an invasion and invoke a wartime authority during peacetime'

(Image credit: Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)

published 2 May 2025

What happened

U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. Thursday ruled that President Donald Trump's invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of a Venezuelan gang was "unlawful" and barred him from using the 18th century law to detain, transfer or deport migrants from southeastern Texas. Rodriguez, a Trump appointee, was the first judge to permanently block Trump's use of the law and rule it legally invalid.

Rodriguez's 36-page ruling "amounted to a philosophical rejection" of the White House's "attempts to transpose" the 227-year-old law "into the context of modern-day immigration policy," The New York Times said. Trump's proclamation declaring the Tren de Aragua gang an invasion force "exceeds the scope" of the Alien Enemies Act and is "contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning" of its terms, historically and definitionally, the judge wrote.

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Rodriguez's injunction "only covers his southern Texas-based district," Politico said, and an appeal would be heard by the "most conservative federal appeals court in the country." But his ruling is "extremely detailed, well reasoned, well grounded in the law," Elora Mukherjee, the director of Columbia Law School's Immigrants' Rights Clinic, said to The Washington Post, "and hopefully other federal courts will consider it precedent."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.