Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Year : 2, Issue: 30
Reuters: A US appeals court judge said on Monday that Nazis were given more rights to contest their removal from the United States during World War Two than Venezuelan migrants deported by the Trump administration.
In a contentious hearing, US Circuit Judge Patricia Millett questioned government lawyer Drew Ensign on whether Venezuelans targeted for removal under a little-used 18th-century law had time to contest the Trump administration’s assertion that they were members of the Tren de Aragua gang before they were put on planes and deported to El Salvador.
“Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here,” Millett said, to which Ensign responded, “We certainly dispute the Nazi analogy.”
Prior to the Trump administration’s invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, the law had been used three times in US history, most recently to intern and remove Japanese, German and Italian immigrants during World War Two.
The Trump administration was asking the appeals court to halt Washington-based US District Judge James Boasberg’s two-week ban, imposed on March 15, on the use of the law to justify deportation of alleged Tren de Aragua members without final removal orders from immigration judges.
Family members of many of the deported Venezuelan migrants deny the alleged gang ties. Lawyers for one of the deportees, a Venezuelan professional soccer player and youth coach, said US officials had wrongly labeled him a gang member based on a tattoo of a crown meant to reference his favorite team, Real Madrid.
Millett, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, is one of three judges on a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit hearing the government’s challenge to Boasberg’s order. US Circuit Judge Justin Walker, who was appointed by Republican Donald Trump during his first term as president, appeared more supportive of the government’s arguments.
The third judge on the panel, Karen Henderson, was appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush. The court did not say when it would rule.
