A judge in California on Monday blocked the Trump administration from using the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants in the Los Angeles area, ruling that the government hasn’t promised adequate due process.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge John Holcomb — who was nominated by President Trump in 2019 — is the latest to limit the administration’s controversial practice of rapidly deporting people accused of being members of the gang Tren de Aragua under the 1798 law, which allows removals of during an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” of the United States. Courts in three other states have also blocked Alien Enemies Act removals, though under different arguments.
Holcomb’s preliminary injunction applies to most migrants who are in custody in the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles, Orange County and several bordering areas. The judge previously issued a temporary restraining order last month.
The case reached Holcomb’s desk after a Venezuelan man named Darwin Antonio Arevalo Millan petitioned for his release last month. Arevalo says he applied for asylum but was arrested at a scheduled Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-in and told he was detained in part due to his tattoos. The government told the court that he wasn’t detained under the Alien Enemies Act, but Holcomb concluded that Arevalo still “faces an imminent threat of removal” under Mr. Trump’s order invoking the law.
Holcomb ruled that Arevalo is likely to succeed in showing the government hasn’t provided adequate notice for him to challenge his deportation. The judge said that in a hearing the government “refused to tell the Court how much notice it actually intends to provide.”
“Arevalo seeks to avoid being deported as an alien enemy without being afforded the opportunity to challenge that designation—not to avoid deportation altogether,” Holcomb wrote.
However, unlike some other federal judges, Holcomb said Arevalo was unlikely to show the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act illegally. He wrote that it’s up to the president, not the court system, to decide whether an invasion or predatory incursion has occurred under the law.
CBS News has reached out to the White House for comment.
Monday’s ruling adds to a complicated legal landscape for the Alien Enemies Act since March, when Mr. Trump first invoked the law against people accused of belonging to Tren de Aragua.
Critics say the government has used the law to remove people without adequate due process. Hundreds of Venezuelan deportees have been sent to a Salvadoran supermax prison under the law — some of whom have no known criminal record. The Trump administration maintains that the deportations are lawful and necessary to crack down on gang violence.
Courts in at least five states have weighed in on the law, reaching different conclusions. Judges in New York, Colorado and Texas have suggested Mr. Trump is using the Alien Enemies Act improperly because Tren de Aragua’s actions don’t constitute a foreign invasion or incursion. But a judge in Pennsylvania found that the president is allowed to use the law for alleged gang members, though she said the government hasn’t provided deportees with enough notice.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has not ruled on whether the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act is legal, but it has said the government needs to give people a chance to challenge their deportation under the law. Last month, the high court blocked Alien Enemies Act removals in part of Texas on the argument that a group of migrants weren’t given enough notice, but the justices did not specify how much notice deportees are owed.
Last month, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that the Supreme Court will probably need to be the final word on the Alien Enemies Act — and argued the court should rule soon.
“The circumstances call for a prompt and final resolution, which likely can be provided only by this Court,” Kavanaugh wrote