D.C. court’s order will allow men held incommunicado since March 15 to challenge their detention and removal 

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Washington, D.C., held that the removal of over 130 Venezuelan men under the Alien Enemies Act on March 15 was unlawful and ordered the Trump administration to provide them access to habeas corpus relief. The case is J.G.G. v. Trump.  

The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Democracy Forward, and the ACLU of the District of Columbia.

President Trump’s invocation of the centuries-old wartime act in peacetime is unprecedented and lawless; were it not for court orders stopping it, the administration would have sent many more people to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador without due process. Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued the preliminary injunction. He ruled that the class members were unlawfully removed to CECOT before they had received constitutionally adequate notice of the reason for that removal or any meaningful opportunity to actually seek habeas relief, and is requiring the government to propose, within a week, a process that will give them that opportunity. 

In his ruling, the judge described what happened to the class as Kafka-esque, noting “CECOT Plaintiffs never had any opportunity to challenge the Government’s say-so” before they were “spirited away,” and how since then “significant evidence has come to light indicating that many of those currently entombed in CECOT have no connection to the gang and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous accusations.” 

The following is reaction to the ruling: 

“Today’s ruling affirms what every American knows: in the United States, people are entitled to due process and no one should be removed from the country without it. What has long separated the United States from autocratic regimes is the recognition of this process. We will continue to oppose this administration’s attempts to re-write the protections afforded under our Constitution,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward. 

“The court properly recognized that the government cannot send people to a notorious foreign gulag without due process and then wash its hands of the situation,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, lead counsel who argued the case. 

“Today’s decision vindicates one of the most fundamental promises of our nation’s Constitution: that a person cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. At stake in this case is no less than whether a U.S. president can, at will, disappear people he views as enemies. No practice could be more odious to our Constitution,” said Scott Michelman, legal director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia. 

The ruling is online here. 

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