U.S. judge temporarily stops west Texas immigrant deportations under Alien Enemies Act

A federal judge in west Texas has joined other courts in temporarily blocking the deportations of Venezuelan immigrants under an 18th century wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act.

U.S. District Judge David Briones in El Paso issued the ruling Friday while he ordered the release of a couple accused of being members of a Venezuelan criminal gang. Briones wrote that government lawyers “have not demonstrated they have any lawful basis” to continue detaining the couple on a suspected alien enemy violation.

A message left with an attorney for the couple wasn’t immediately returned Saturday.

The couple are accused of being part of Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. President Trump has invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which lets the president deport noncitizens 14 years or older who are from a country with which the U.S. is at war. Trump says that the U.S. is being “invaded” by members of the Venezuelan gang, which amounts to war.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked, for now, the deportations of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under the act. The high court also ruled that anyone being deported under Trump’s declaration deserved a hearing in federal court first and should be given “a reasonable time” to contest their pending removals.

Briones’ ruling applies only to Venezuelan immigrants in federal custody in his judicial district. Federal judges in Colorado, south Texas and New York previously issued similar rulings. Briones ordered the government to give a 21-day notice before attempting to remove anyone in west Texas — in contrast to the 12 hours that the government contends is sufficient.

The El Paso case comes as the Trump administration and local authorities clash over the president’s sweeping immigration crackdown. Briones’ ruling occurred the same day as the FBI’s arrest of a Milwaukee judge accused of helping a man evade immigration authorities.

Briones, who was nominated to the court in 1994 by President Clinton, said that “due process requirements for the removal of noncitizens are long established” under the Immigration and Nationality Act as well as previous Supreme Court rulings.

“There is no doubt the Executive Branch’s unprecedented peacetime use of wartime power has caused chaos and uncertainty for individual petitions as well as the judicial branch in how to manage and evaluate the Executive’s claims of Tren de Aragua membership, and the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act as a whole,” Briones wrote.

The couple, Julio Cesar Sanchez Puentes and Luddis Norelia Sanchez Garcia, were granted temporary protected status after entering the United States from Mexico in October 2022. They were notified that their status was terminated on April 1.

They were arrested April 16 at the El Paso airport as they prepared to return to their home in Washington, D.C., where they live with their three children. They had flown to Texas for an April 14 pretrial hearing related to removal proceedings. That case was continued until June 23, and the couple were allowed to remain free on bail, according to court documents.

Raby writes for the Associated Press.