Trump Invokes Alien Enemies Act, Ignores Judicial Order to Stop Deportation Flights
www.democracynow.org
President Trump has invoked a controversial 18th-century law last used to justify the arrest and internment of 30,000 Japanese, German and Italian nationals during World War II, as part of his ongoing crusade against immigrants. Citing the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, the Trump administration deported more than 130 immigrants who have been accused, often with little to no evidence, of gang affiliation. The ACLU won a judicial order against the deportations, which the Trump administration ignored, allowing the flights to continue to El Salvador, where authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele received the deportees at a notorious supermax prison. We speak to Lee Gelernt, who argued to stop the flights on behalf of the ACLU, about Trump’s attacks on established U.S. immigration law. We cover the second Trump’s administration’s attempts to incarcerate immigrants at the Guantánamo military prison and end birthright citizenship, as well as the ongoing effects of his previous administration’s policies of family separation and countrywide travel bans.

On Friday, the current régime invoked an 18th-century congressional act to justify its newest illegal endeavor, the mass kidnapping of Venezuelan immigrants. Though a coalition led by the ACLU almost immediately used the proper channels to successfully petition a judge to issue a temporary restraining order, flights that had already taken off continued transporting 137 Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, bound for a notoriously horrific prison, in spite of the judge’s explicit instructions to turn the planes around.

It’s hard to even comment on how horrific all of this is: on a moral level, a humanitarian level, and a legal level. The case is still ongoing, so there may be more to this story in weeks to come. It bears watching, because the current administration is doing its best to set an incredibly dangerous precedent.

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)

  • sinovictorchan@lemmygrad.ml
    5·
    17 days ago

    I now want to hear whether any liberals will advocate that another country replaces the US as the leader for freedom and human rights even when the US had never advocated for true democracy outside of Western European diaspora.