At the federal courthouse in Brownsville, Texas, Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., a reserved 56-year-old Trump appointee, posed a pointed question to a government attorney: Can the president unilaterally define what constitutes an invasion, declare such an invasion, and then invoke a 1798 wartime statute to expel those deemed invaders?
Michael Velchik, representing the Justice Department, affirmed this authority.
Judge Rodriguez then challenged the scope of this power, asking if such an interpretation would render the president’s authority under the Alien Enemies Act effectively boundless.
This exchange prefaced a landmark ruling issued by Judge Rodriguez on Thursday, in which he concluded that the Trump administration’s assertion—that the activities of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in the U.S. amounted to an "invasion" justifying the use of the wartime statute—was legally unfounded.
The ruling represents the most comprehensive judicial pushback to date against a key element of the Trump administration’s immigration strategy. This strategy had already led to the deportation of nearly 140 Venezuelans to a Salvadoran prison as of mid-March. The decision follows a Supreme Court directive earlier in April allowing Venezuelan detainees subject to deportation under the Alien Enemies Act to challenge their cases in federal district courts.
Consequently, legal challenges targeting this aggressive immigration policy, initially launched in Washington, are now emerging across multiple jurisdictions. These cases are prompting rigorous and skeptical judicial scrutiny, even from judges with strong conservative backgrounds.
