Judge Extends Injunction Against Trump’s Alien Enemies Act Invocation

The temporary restraining order had been set to expire on March 29.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, stands for a portrait at E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington on March 16, 2023. Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via AP

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on March 28 extended a temporary restraining order that prevents U.S. officials from deporting illegal immigrants from the United States solely on the basis of President Donald Trump’s invocation of a wartime law.

Boasberg said in a 3-page ruling there is good cause to extend the order because Venezuelan nationals who sued over the invocation are entitled to relief preventing their removal “at least until they have had a chance to challenge that they are covered by the Proclamation.”

“That is so because they are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that they are entitled to such an opportunity; that they will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of emergency relief; and that the balance of equities and the public interest tilt in their favor,” the judge said, citing his previous rulings in the case.

No developments have taken place since the entry of the order and a similar narrower order that call those decisions into question, according to the ruling.

The injunctions had been due to expire on March 29. They are now in place until April 12, or until further order from the court.

Lawyers for the illegal immigrants had asked Boasberg to extend the orders, which were entered on March 15, just hours after Trump’s proclamation was made public.

If the orders were allowed to expire, officials would resume deportation flights to El Salvador, the lawyers warned.

U.S. Department of Justice attorneys had opposed the motion for an extension. They wrote in a filing that the court lacks jurisdiction over the allegations, “which challenge matters within the President’s unreviewable authority and, nonetheless, sound in habeas and must therefore be brought as habeas claims in district of confinement.”

The extension came on the same day the Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in the case, claiming that the block on utilizing the Alien Enemies Act to deport members of the Tren de Aragua terrorist gang “is forcing the United States to harbor individuals whom national-security officials have identified as members of a foreign terrorist organization bent upon grievously harming Americans.”

Chief Justice John Roberts soon after set a deadline of 10 a.m. on April 1 for lawyers for the illegal immigrants to respond.

The Alien Enemies Act states in part that whenever “a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government,” the president shall proclaim that nationals from that hostile nation shall be deported.

Trump said in a proclamation that Tren de Aragua, working with the Venezuelan government, has been “undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States.”

A divided federal appeals court on March 26 upheld the temporary restraining orders from Boasberg.

U.S. Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, in the majority, said in a concurring opinion that the U.S. District Court in Washington had jurisdiction to hear the case, even though the illegal immigrants have been detained in Texas. U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Miller, also in the majority, said in a concurring opinion that the government does not face irreparable harm absent a stay, in part because officials can still deport the illegal immigrants through the typical deportation process outlined in the Immigration and Nationality Act.

U.S. Circuit Judge Justin Walker, in a dissent, said that the legal claims should have been filed in Texas. He also said the government has shown that the restraining orders “threaten irreparable harm to delicate negotiations with foreign powers on matters concerning national security.”