The U.S. Department of Justice dubiously invoked a centuries-old law in directing immigration agents to carry out home invasion searches without warrants, an internal memo revealed.
USA Today—which obtained a copy of the March 14 memo issued by the office of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi—reported Friday that the Trump administration ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to pursue suspected members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua into homes, sometimes without warrants, under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA).
The 1798 law has been invoked to deport hundreds of undocumented immigrants—the majority of whom have no criminal records in the United States—many of whom have been sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a notorious super-maximum security prison in El Salvador, regardless of their nationality.
According to the memo:
As much as practicable, officers should follow the proactive procedures above—and have an executed warrant of apprehension and removal—before contacting an alien enemy. However, that will not always be realistic or effective in swiftly identifying and removing alien enemies... An officer may encounter a suspected alien enemy in the natural course of the officer's enforcement activity, such as when apprehending other validated members of Tren de Aragua. Given the dynamic nature of enforcement operations, officers in the field are authorized to apprehend aliens upon a reasonable belief that the alien meets all four requirements to be validated as an alien enemy. This authority includes entering an alien enemy's residence to make an AEA apprehension where circumstances render it impracticable to first obtain a signed notice and warrant of apprehension and removal.
The Trump administration's controversially broad interpretation of the AEA and questionable criteria for targeting immigrants has led to the arrest and wrongful deportation of individuals including makeup artist Andry José Hernández Romero and Kilmar Abrego García, both of whom were sent to CECOT. The Trump administration is defying a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate Abrego García's return to the United States.
Earlier this month, the ACLU and allied groups sued to block the Trump administration's AEA deportations, arguing that "no one should face the horrifying prospect of lifelong imprisonment without a fair hearing, let alone in another country."
On Friday, U.S. District Judge David Briones ordered ICE to free a Venezuelan couple detained in El Paso under the AEA, finding that the government "has not demonstrated they have any lawful basis to continue detaining" the pair. Briones also warned ICE to not deport anyone else it is holding as an alleged "alien enemy" in West Texas.
Lee Gelernt, the ACLU's lead counsel in cases challenging use of the AEA, told USA Today: "The administration's unprecedented use of a wartime authority during peacetime was bad enough. Now we find out the Justice Department was authorizing officers to ignore the most bedrock principle of the Fourth Amendment by authorizing officers to enter homes without a judicial warrant."
Monique Sherman, an attorney at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, expressed alarm over the DOJ memo.
"The home under all constitutional law is the most sacred place where you have a right to privacy," Sherman told USA Today. "By this standard, spurious allegations of gang affiliation means the government can knock down your door."
As Georgetown University Law Center professor Steve Vladeck said, "There's no Alien Enemies Act exception to the Fourth Amendment."