May 7 (UPI) -- Another federal judge has ruled against President Donald Trump's use of a wartime authority to deport Venezuelan migrants, saying his administration has failed to properly interpret the Alien Enemies Act or establish standing for its invocation.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein issued a ruling Tuesday that prevents the Trump administration from using the AEA to deport migrants from his jurisdiction in the Southern District of New York.
The ruling comes in a case brought by two plaintiffs identified by the initials GFF and JGO, who were detained in Orange County Jail before being transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Texas on March 25. They were to be deported to El Salvador but were pulled off the plane following a temporary restraining order issued against their removal.
The pair have been returned to Orange County Jail as the Trump administration fights in court to remove them.
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The AEA is a 1798 wartime authority the president can invoke under threat of invasion or predatory incursion to detain or deport immigrants based on their nationality. It has been used three times during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, with the last instance resulting in Japanese residents being held in internment camps.
Trump invoked the AEA in mid-March under the claim that the United States was under invasion by Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang. He used the wartime authority to deport more than 200 people to El Salvador where the United States pays for them to be indefinitely jailed in the infamous Terrorism Confinement Center -- until a court order halted the deportations.
In his Tuesday ruling, Hellerstein, a President Bill Clinton appointee, chastised the Trump administration for its use of the AEA, stating that the presidential proclamation contradicts the act, which dictates that those deported under it be given due process.
"Conveniently, Respondents fail to mention another section of the AEA that imposes a 'duty' on the federal courts to give a 'full examination and hearing' to the Executive's 'complaint' against the alien, and to order the alien's removal only upon 'sufficient cause appearing,'" he said, quoting the act, adding that under it "removal may not occur except after notice and hearing."
After quoting several different definitions for "invasion" and "incursion," Hellerstein also stated that Trump's claims in support of the idea that TdA has committed invasion or predatory incursion of the United States "do not exist."
"There is nothing in the AEA that justifies a finding that refugees migrating from Venezuela, or TdA gangsters who infiltrate the migrants, are engaged in an 'invasion' or 'predatory incursion,'" Hellerstein wrote. "They do not seek to occupy territory, to oust American jurisdiction from any territory or to ravage territory. TdA may well be engaged in narcotics trafficking, but that is a criminal matter, not an invasion or predatory incursion."
The ruling is the lasted setback of the Trump administration's use of the AEA.
Last week, a Trump-appointed judge in Texas ruled the White House was illegally using the AEA to deport migrants.
Last month, the Supreme Court paused deportations of Venezuelan migrants held in Texas under the AEA.
