A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. refused Wednesday to lift an emergency order from a lower court judge blocking President Donald Trump from carrying out mass deportations of suspected members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
The court's decision was 2-1, with Trump-appointed judge Justin Walker dissenting.
Judge Karen Henderson, an appointee of former President George H. W. Bush, found that the Trump administration presented no evidence that the United States is under "invasion" or "predatory incursion," and therefore, the law in question does not apply. Meanwhile, Judge Patricia Millett, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, faulted the administration for the lack of due process ordered to these individuals Trump claimed to be criminal gang members.
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The Trump administration has effectively denied they have any responsibility to afford due process to people in deportation proceedings, with border security adviser Tom Homan stating in an interview, "What due process did Laken Riley get? What due process did all these little girls who got murdered and raped? What due process do they get?"
In hearings on the deportations earlier this week, Millet vehemently disagreed, arguing that blocking the deportations that "Nazis got better treatment" from the U.S. government during World War II.
All of this comes as Trump attempts to ramp up a number of other controversial deportation plans, including the removal of college and graduate students who participated in protests against Israel last year, using another law from the 1950s, that, ironically, his own sister argued was unconstitutional when she served as a federal judge.
