President Trump issued a March proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to allow removal of foreign nationals if "any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated" and to fast-track deportations. The New Orleans-based appellate court became the first federal appeals court to directly rule on that proclamation, and the case is likely to reach the Supreme Court. The court found that a country encouraging citizens to enter the U.S. illegally is not equivalent to sending an armed, organized force and noted no finding that mass immigration constituted armed forces. Judges split with a concurrence and a dissent. The ACLU said the decision protects due process against an unfair, error-prone deportation expansion.
However, the appeals court ruled that a country encouraging its citizens to enter the U.S. illegally "is not the modern-day equivalent of sending an armed, organized force to occupy, to disrupt, or to otherwise harm" the United States. "There is no finding that this mass immigration was an armed, organized force or forces," added the ruling, written by the George W. Bush-appointed Judge Leslie Southwick.
"The Trump administration's expansion of fast-track deportations has subjected thousands of people to an unfair, arbitrary, and error-prone system," said Anand Balakrishnan, senior staff attorney with ACLU, which brought the lawsuit against the president, several Trump administration officials and agencies including the Department of Homeland Security. "The court's decision reaffirms the fundamental principle that people receive due process when the government seeks to deport them or their families," Balakrishnan added.
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