On Tuesday, a federal appellate court ruled that President Donald Trump unlawfully invoked a centuries-old wartime law to swiftly deport Venezuelan migrants, blocking one of his administration's most contentious immigration initiatives and teeing up a legal battle sure to end up before the Supreme Court.
A divided three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit rejected Trump's use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to remove alleged members of the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua gang, concluding that their presence in the country did not amount to the type of invasion or "predatory incursion" lawmakers envisioned when they drafted the statute allowing fast-tracked deportations.
The 2-1 decision from the panel, comprised of judges from one of the nation’s most conservative appellate courts, follows a string of similar rulings from lower courts across the country that have almost uniformly rejected Trump’s invocation of the law on similar grounds. However, the case the 5th Circuit decided on Tuesday is widely viewed as the one most likely to reach the Supreme Court of United States (SCOTUS) first, and several other appellate courts had paused their consideration of similar cases while awaiting the circuit court’s ruling.
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