A Trump-appointed judge appears to have drawn the ire of President Donald Trump after blocking the administration’s “unlawful” use of the Alien Enemies Act.
U.S. District Court Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. stated that he would not prevent the administration from deporting individuals in the U.S. illegally but that the Alien Enemies Act could not be used as a basis to expel alleged gang members from the country. Rodriguez is the first judge to rule against the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members.
“The question that this lawsuit presents is whether the President can utilize a specific statute, the AEA, to detain and remove Venezuelan aliens who are members of [Tren de Aragua]. As to that question, the historical record renders clear that the president’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute’s terms,” Rodriguez — who was appointed by Trump in 2018 — wrote in his order.
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Trump expressed his anger about the decision in a pointed Truth Social post, questioning how judges could block the deportation of “criminals, including murderers.”
“Can it be so that judges aren’t allowing the USA to deport criminals, including murderers, out of our country and back to where they came from? If this is so, our country, as we know it, is finished,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Saturday. “Americans will have to get used to a very different, crime-filled, LIFE. This is not what our founders had in mind!!!”
While it is not clear whether the post was a direct response to Rodriguez’s order, the judge’s decision is the most recent regarding illegal immigration and deportation.
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Just ahead of Trump’s 100th day in office, the White House claimed there had been 139,000 deportations since the president took office.
During his campaign, Trump promised a swift and harsh crackdown on illegal immigration, which had become a focus under the Biden administration. In March, the administration took a controversial Biden-era app and added a “self-deport” feature, allowing illegal immigrants to voluntarily leave the country rather than facing ICE.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem said in a cabinet meeting on Trump’s 100th day in office that the president had “completely reversed” the situation at the border. She added that DHS had refocused the Coast Guard on “border and drug interdiction,” noting that cartels have increasingly used maritime smuggling routes in response to stricter immigration enforcement.
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