Court strikes down Trump's use of wartime law against Venezuelan migrants

A federal court has granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from deporting Venezuelan nationals under a centuries-old wartime statute, dealing a significant setback to the president’s efforts to quickly remove migrants with suspected links to a violent criminal gang.

The case, W.M.M. v. Trump, arose after several Venezuelans detained in Texas challenged their removal under a March 2025 presidential proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) of 1798, a law originally passed during the John Adams administration at the height of tensions with France.

President Donald Trump argued that members of Tren de Aragua — a violent Venezuelan criminal organization designated as a foreign terrorist group—were conducting an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” into the United States, and therefore could be detained and removed without the usual immigration procedures.

Trump invoked the act in March to quickly deport 238 Venezuelan migrants and 23 alleged MS-13 members to the notorious Salvadoran CECOT maximum-security prison. By the end of that month, an additional 17 alleged gang members had been deported under the AEA, despite a federal court order temporarily halting the removals. News reports from April 2025 indicated that the administration had plans to send more migrants with criminal records to the same prison once all legal obstacles were overcome.

But in a 2–1 decision issued late Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, based in New Orleans, rejected Trump’s attempt to use the Alien Enemies Act for the swift deportation of alleged gang members.

The divided three-judge panel concluded that the Venezuelan gang’s presence did not constitute the type of invasion or “predatory incursion” contemplated in the statute. “A country’s encouraging its residents and citizens to enter this country illegally is not the modern-day equivalent of sending an armed, organized force to occupy, disrupt, or otherwise harm the United States,” wrote Judge Leslie H. Southwick for the majority.

Addressing the administration’s assertion that one of the gang’s main aims was to sow social chaos in the United States through drug trafficking, the opinion said that while devastating, the practice did not amount to invasion or incursion under the 1798 statute.

The case now returns to the Northern District of Texas for further proceedings, with the injunction remaining in place unless overturned by the Supreme Court. Legal observers expect the administration to seek high court review, setting up another confrontation over the scope of executive power in immigration and national security.

The Trump administration maintains that the Nicolás Maduro regime sent members of notorious gangs to generate chaos inside the United States and that the criminal organization is an armed branch of the “Cartel of the Suns,” which the Department of Justice alleges is headed by Maduro and his top lieutenant, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello.

In a memo submitted earlier this year to the federal judge in Texas overseeing the case, the FBI asserted that the Venezuelan regime is actively enabling the expansion of Tren de Aragua as part of a campaign to destabilize neighboring countries and the United States.

The FBI memo described this expansion as deliberate. “Some Venezuelan government officials likely facilitate the migration of TDA members … to advance the Maduro regime’s objective of undermining public safety in the United States,” the memo stated. The assessment, supported by multiple sources, carried a “medium confidence” rating due to limitations in source access and corroboration.

Once confined to prison networks in Venezuela’s Aragua state, TDA has grown into a sprawling multinational criminal syndicate. Now classified as a “megagang,” the group operates across Latin America and, according to U.S. law enforcement, has established a presence in several American cities.

The detainees seeking habeas relief contend that they were not enemy combatants and that the proclamation stretched the AEA far beyond its intended scope. After a district court denied them relief, their case quickly escalated to the Supreme Court, which temporarily blocked the removals and ordered the 5th Circuit to determine whether the extraordinary remedy of a preliminary injunction was warranted.

In the ruling, Southwick emphasized that while presidents enjoy wide discretion under the AEA, the courts retain authority to interpret the statute’s key terms and decide whether the factual findings fit within them. “Interpretation cannot be just an academic exercise,” Southwick wrote. “A court makes the effort to define a term like ‘invasion’ but then cannot evaluate the facts before it for their fit with the interpretation.”

The court turned to history for guidance. It noted that the AEA has been invoked only three times before—during the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II—and always in the context of declared wars. Dictionaries and constitutional usage from the late 18th century defined “invasion” as the hostile entry of a foreign military force and “predatory incursion” as smaller-scale raids conducted by armed units under government authority.

By contrast, Trump’s proclamation relied heavily on allegations that Tren de Aragua had infiltrated the United States through mass illegal migration, drug trafficking, and irregular warfare. While conceding that these activities were serious threats, the court found that they did not meet the AEA’s threshold.

The panel concluded that the petitioners were likely to succeed on the merits, would face irreparable harm if deported, and that the balance of equities favored preserving their right to judicial review.

The judges also clarified that their ruling did not prevent the government from using other immigration or national security statutes to remove suspected terrorists. “Our injunction solely applies to the use of the war-related federal statute,” the court wrote, “and does not impede use of any other statutory authority for removing foreign terrorists.”

The judges also addressed a separate due process issue: whether the government had given detainees adequate notice before removal. On that question, the panel determined that “the revised notice procedures satisfy due process at least based on the current record.”