A panel of judges of the 5th Court of Appeals of the United States Circuit, one of the most conservative courts in the country, listened to arguments on Monday about whether the Trump administration can invoke Alien enemies law to deport Venezuelan migrants who considers being part of the Criminal Gang of Train of Aragua.
“This has been invoked three times only in the main wars,” argued Aclu’s lawyer Lee Gelernt, on the Alien enemies law, a war authority of the 18th century used to eliminate non -citizens with little or not due process. “The government now suggests that it can invoke it with a gang.”
The Trump administration worn out a legal battle in March when the Alien enemies law invoked to deport two planes of alleged members of migrant gangs to the mega prison in El Salvador arguing that Train de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.
In the multiple demands, ACLU has helped contribute against the use of AEA by Trump, the group has argued that the administration could not demonstrate that the presence of Aragua train members is equivalent to a “predatory incursion” or a declared war as the text of the AEA antignments.
“This was only about war and the serious military conflict in a size in which we would respond with our military, and nobody suggests that the military have responded or respond here,” Glernt argued during Monday’s audience.
The judges, however, seemed more concerned with whether or not they had the power to govern against the invocation of a law president.
“Can you give me a case of the Supreme Court in which the Supreme Court has said that it can, as a federal court, counteract the president of the United States in its determination that we are in an armed conflict?” One of the judges asked.
Salvadoran police officers process the members of the Venezuelan Gang Train of Aragua recently deported by the United States government to be imprisoned in the prison of the Terrorism Confinement Center, in San Luis Talpa, El Salvador, obtained on March 16, 2025.
Press Secretary of the Presidency Via Reuters
Glernt replied that he could not point out a specific case, but argued that if the court declared that the AEA requires a military conflict, “it would have to be able to take measures to say: ‘Well, does the proclamation on his face establish a military conflict?’
“The government itself does not affirm that there is a military conflict,” he said.
Deputy Attorney General Drew Ensign argued that the Court did not have the power to guess the president’s authority to invoke the law.
Ensign also said that Aragua’s Train had assumed “complete apartment buildings in which they exercise control” in areas throughout the country, and that the FBI had reasons to believe that the gang would carry out murders in the United States.
“The FBI has evaluated that it is likely that the ADD tries to carry out specific murders of the Maduro regime in the next six to 18 months, as they have done in Chile: they kidnapped and murdered a former colonel of the Venezuelan army who was critical of the Maduro regime and had asylum in Chile,” said the Ansegle, “said the Anseregle.
“So we believe that all that evidence clearly supports the president’s determination that there has been an invasion and predatory incursion,” said Ensign.
