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President Donald Trump smiles as he speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, May 20, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A Georgia judge on Wednesday barred the Trump administration from deporting a Venezuelan immigrant using the Alien Enemies Act (AEA).
In a 15-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Clay Land, a George W. Bush appointee, frames the case as part of an ongoing political clash as President Donald Trump moves to “reverse the immigration policies” of Joe Biden, with courts “thrust into the middle of the controversy.”
The judge says his work is to decide any given case on the merits of that case alone, and here he finds the government’s position lacking.
“[I]t is difficult sometimes to separate the policy issues from the legal ones in these cases,” Land’s opinion reads. “But the courts’ job (solemn duty) is to carefully make that discernment and base decisions on a good faith interpretation of the law and not immigration public policy considerations.”
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In the case, stylized as Y.A.P.A. v. Trump, the plaintiff filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus as a lone litigant in order to “preemptively prevent his transfer” to a notorious prison in El Salvador known as the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT), the judge explains.
The plaintiff alleges the government is likely to try and have him summarily deported under the auspices of the AEA. This claim, the court notes, is based on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) telling an immigration court the detainee “is a known associate of” Tren de Aragua (TdA), the transnational Venezuelan gang cited in Trump’s invocation of the 18th-century wartime law.
The government, for its part, insisted the plaintiff does not have standing to file his habeas petition because he has not even been “designated an alien enemy” under the AEA.
The judge rejected that argument, based on a series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings about due process required under the obscure statute.
“The Supreme Court’s decision only a few days ago answers the standing issue,” Land observes. “It granted a temporary injunction to two Venezuelan immigration detainees who sought injunctive relief against summary removal from the United States under the AEA.”
And, to that end, Land found the petitioner, whom he describes as a “Venezuelan national who is detained in a U.S. detention center,” has standing because he “has pointed to sufficient evidence” that he might very well be deported to CECOT under the auspices of the AEA.
But the justices also dealt with some additional procedural issues in their latest order. Last Friday, the nation’s high court — in a case variously stylized as A.A.R.P. v. Trump and W.M.M. v. Trump due to class certification issues — found that granting Texas detainees “roughly 24 hours” of notice before deportation “surely does not pass muster.”
Land also applied that notice ruling to the present case.
“The Supreme Court, however, did not shed much light on what would ‘pass muster,”” the opinion goes on. “That job is assigned, at least initially, to those of us on the front lines.”
The court offers a brief survey of the notice the government has suggested they might use for AEA designations in the Peach State. There, the court notes, ICE officers instruct would-be deportees that they have somewhere between 24 and 36 hours to avail themselves of a habeas petition. Land says that is not enough.
“In light of A.A.R.P., the Court finds that the process outlined in Respondents’ declaration does not meet the minimal due process requirements contemplated by the Supreme Court, particularly as it relates to the time within which a designated alien enemy has to file his habeas petition after being notified of the designation,” the opinion goes on.
In granting the preliminary injunction, the judge says the detainee will be irreparably harmed should he be removed under the AEA.
“Petitioner will certainly be irreparably harmed if he is transferred to CECOT without having a meaningful opportunity to contest the Government’s right to send him there,” Land continues. “He may be unlawfully present in the United States. But we as a country, through our elected representatives, have determined the process for removing persons who are here unlawfully.”
In a concluding section about the public interest, the court spends considerable time musing about the constitutional rights at stake.
From the opinion, at length:
Respondents undoubtedly would prefer that they be allowed to implement any necessary changes to their AEA procedures without judicial oversight. Allowing constitutional rights to be dependent upon the grace of the Executive branch would be a dereliction of duty by this third and independent branch of Government and would be against the public interest. Respondents have demonstrated their intention to test the constitutional limits of Executive power, which is certainly their right; but the Court has the responsibility to assure that unrestrained zeal does not include gaming the system in a manner that deprives an individual of constitutional protections that were established by our wise founders and preserved by subsequent brave patriots.
The judge then invokes — all-but inverting — the namesake of Trump’s own national movement to further elucidate the point.
“The public interest, while not always vocalized the loudest, requires that we remember that these constitutional protections do not exist only for those attending lunch at the local Rotary Club, enjoying war stories at the VFW hall or having a beer at the Moose Club lodge,” Land goes on. “These rights are not rationed based upon political views, and they do not belong solely to those who may be subjectively determined to be great Americans. They extend to those whom many may consider to be the most repugnant among us. This foundational principle is part of what has made, and will continue to make, America great.”
