A federal judge on Monday kept in place his ruling barring the Trump administration from using a powerful wartime statute to summarily deport a group of Venezuelan immigrants whom officials have accused of being members of a violent street gang.
In a 37-page order, the judge, James E. Boasberg, said the order should remain in place so that the Venezuelan immigrants could have the opportunity to challenge accusations that they belong to the gang, Tren de Aragua, before the Trump administration can fly them out of the country under the wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act.
The Alien Enemies Act, Judge Boasberg wrote, “arguably envisions that those caught up in its web must be given the opportunity to seek such review.”
Judge Boasberg, who serves as the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, issued an initial order on March 15 temporarily barring the administration from using the act to deport scores of Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador with little or no due process.
While Mr. Trump and his allies have accused Judge Boasberg of overstepping his authority by intruding on the president’s prerogative to conduct foreign affairs, the question at the heart of the case is whether Mr. Trump himself overstepped by ignoring several provisions laid out in the text of the act for how the deportations should be handled.
The act, which was passed in 1798, gives the government wide latitude during an invasion or a time of war to summarily round up subjects of a “hostile nation” who are over the age of 14, and remove them from the country as “alien enemies.”