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El Paso federal judge hears latest challenge to Trump use of Enemy Aliens Act to target Venezuelans [1]
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Date: 2025-05-29
An El Paso federal judge expressed skepticism of the Trump administration’s attempt to use an 18th century law to quickly deport those it claims are Venezuelan gang members, the latest in a line of judicial criticisms of the plan.
Michael Velchick, a lawyer in the Justice Department’s civil division, argued that the Alien Enemies Act – which allows for expanded removal power for the government in times of war with or invasion by a foreign nation – could be interpreted to include members of the Tren de Aragua gang from Venezuela.
After listening to Velchick’s arguments, U.S. District Judge David Briones said: “Another way to interpret an act is to read it for what it says.”
Briones conducted a hearing at the El Paso federal courthouse Thursday afternoon on a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union that seeks to bar the use of the Alien Enemies Act against any Venezuelans held in the Western District of Texas, which stretches from El Paso to San Antonio.
The lead plaintiff in the case is a Venezuelan woman who is identified in court records only by the initials M.A.P.S. Her lawyers argue that the Trump administration is improperly using a more than 200-year-old law to expedite its immigration policies.
M.A.P.S. is being held at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s El Paso detention facility, and was in court for the hearing. She is represented by Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, who led efforts in 2018 to strike down the family separation policy in the first Trump administration.
The arguments Thursday centered on whether Briones should enter a preliminary injunction to block the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act in the Western District of Texas while the M.A.P.S case moves forward.
“There is not an invasion or incursion within the meaning of the statute,” Gelernt told Briones.
He said the law only applies to actions by nations against the United States, not criminal gangs.
Velchick said Congress in the 18th century could have intended the law to apply to “pirates and indigenous tribes,” not just nation-states.
The law passed in 1798 had only been invoked three times previously, all in times of attacks by nations against the United States – the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.
Gelernt, Velchick and Briones all said the government has other means of deporting people in the country without authorization. But the Trump administration has said those proceedings are time consuming.
The Trump administration had given suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang 12 hours notice of removal before shipping them to a notorious prison in El Salvador earlier this year.
Attorneys for a number of detainees have said the short notice does not allow for due process. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed earlier this month, and directed the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its earlier rejection of claims from Venezuelan detainees facing imminent deportation.
M.A.P.S., the 33-year-old Venezuelan woman who is the lead plaintiff in the El Paso case, has denied being a member of Tren de Aragua and said the government reached that conclusion on the basis of her tattoos.
Her attorneys say she fled political persecution in Venezuela and entered the United States legally in April 2023 through the government’s CBP One app, and was later granted temporary protected status.
On April 9 of this year, she was arrested by ICE in Ohio, despite her temporary protected status.
She is not at risk of immediate removal because of the Supreme Court intervention, but is seeking a preliminary injunction from Briones for her and other Venezuelans held in the Western District of Texas.
The government has not provided numbers of Venezuelans detained in the Western District, but court filings say they number in the dozens.
In an interview with El Paso Matters after the hearing, Gelernt said he expected that Briones would issue a preliminary injunction before June 10, when a temporary restraining order he issued May 13 will expire.
Briones didn’t issue a ruling on the preliminary injunction request Thursday, but did say he planned to make public a number of government filings that currently aren’t available to the public.
Briones has been critical of the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act in another El Paso case that involved a Venezuelan couple detained by ICE and accused of being members of Tren de Aragua. He said the government failed to present evidence of their gang membership and ordered them released in April.
On Wednesday, Briones rejected a government motion to seal an FBI intelligence report that said that Tren de Aragua gang members were likely to work with the Venezuelan government to attack critics of President Nicolás Maduro in the United States. The report was then made available in the public court file.
The 13-page report is thin on information to support the claims. Gelernt noted in court on Thursday that the government didn’t introduce a report from U.S. intelligence agencies that found no significant ties between the Maduro regime and Tren de Aragua.
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[1] Url:
https://elpasomatters.org/2025/05/29/aclu-lawsuit-in-el-paso-challenges-alien-enemies-act/
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