A federal judge in New York ruled Tuesday that the Alien Enemies Act “was not validly invoked” by the Trump administration when it opted to deport alleged Tren de Aragua members, marking the second time a judge has deemed the administration’s use of the AEA unlawful.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein on Tuesday granted a preliminary injunction in the case of two plaintiffs identified by their initials, GFF and JGO, who were pulled off planes to El Salvador and transferred back to New York from Texas, where they had been detained on suspicion of alignment with the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang.
Tuesday’s ruling comes after a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas last week permanently blocked the Trump administration from detaining, transferring or removing Venezuelans targeted for deportation under the Alien Enemies Act in the Southern District of Texas — ruling that the administration’s invocation of the AEA “exceeds the scope” of the law.
The Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act — an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process — to deport alleged migrant gang members by arguing that Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision last month, lifted an injunction issued by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that had halted deportations under the AEA — but said detainees must be given due process to challenge their removal in the district where they were detained.
GFF and JGO “have not been given notice of what they allegedly did to join TdA, when the joined, and what they did in the United States, or anywhere else, to share or further the illicit objectives of the TdA,” Judge Hellerstein’s opinion said. “Without such proof, Petitioners are subject to removal by the Executive’s dictate alone, in contravention of the AEA and the Constitutional requirements of due process.”
Hellerstein also said Trump was not justified when he invoked the Alien Enemies Act.
A Salvadoran soldier stands guard, as the CECOT logo is seen at the Terrorism Confinement Center prison, in Tecoluca, El Salvador April 4, 2025.
Jose Cabezas/Reuters
“I hold that the predicates for the Presidential Proclamation that TdA has engaged in either a ‘war,’ ‘invasion’ or a ‘predatory incursion’ of the United States do not exist,” Hellerstein’s opinion said. “There is nothing in the AEA that justifies a finding that refugees migrating from Venezuela, or TdA gangsters who infiltrate the migrants, are engaged in an ‘invasion’ or ‘predatory injunction.'”
Judge Hellerstein set a hearing in the matter for May 21.
