President Trump's mission to stop immigrants from entering the United States went a step further on Saturday. Alien enemies do act.
The president's declaration aims to target members of Venezuelan prison gangster Tren de Aragua, and should accelerate the deportation of Venezuelans over the age of 14 or older who are not US citizens or Venezuelans with green cards.
The language of the declaration argues that Venezuelan citizens can be “attractive, restrained, protected and removed as alien enemies.”
Trump signed an executive order in January, designating a foreign terrorist organization in Tren de Aragua, clearing the way that immigrants began cutting back members for removal.
Like the gang and Salvadoran criminal organization MS-13, the declaration reads, “shows an extraordinary and extraordinary threat to national security, foreign policy and the economy.”
Before today, the alien enemy law had only been used four times. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the last president to do so after the attack on Pearl Harbor Naval Base. It dragged the United States into World War II.
The White House announcement follows an emergency hearing held on Saturday after a federal judge suspended the deportation of five Venezuelan men under the order.
“For many years, Venezuela's national and local governments have been increasingly restrained against territory to cross-border criminal organizations, including the TDA,” Trump's statement said. “The consequence is a hybrid criminal nation committed invasions and predatory invasions of the United States, poses a great danger to the United States.”
The Trump administration has already sued the ruling on Saturday.
The origins of Tren de Aragua can be traced back to the prisons of Venezuela.
The violent gang members are said to have blended into the millions of Venezuelans who have left the South American country over the past decade and hoped to start a new start in the US.
Trump highlights gang crime as a testament to his push for tighter boundaries.
Venezuela claims to have eradicated the gangbirds, but members of Tren de Aragua have been arrested all over the world.
Through the declaration, the Trump administration can quickly track deportation without going through normal crime and immigration channels.
The White House said 300 people under US custody have been identified as gang members and could soon be deported to El Salvador.
The move will certainly be under legal surveillance, just as federal judges banned the removal of some Venezuelan immigrants under the law.
Judge James Boasberg banned the enforcement of the law in the case of five immigrants from the country after the American Civil Liberties Union and advances in democracy fought the move in federal courts in Washington, D.C.
With post wire
