Trump Invokes the 1798 Alien Enemies Act: Venezuelan Gang Members Liable to Immediate Apprehension and Removal
On March 15, 2025, President Donald J. Trump released a proclamation at the White House in Washington invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and declaring members of the Venezuelan transnational gang Tren de Aragua to be Alien Enemies liable to immediate apprehension and removal. The proclamation is dated March 14 and was published by the White House on March 15.
Tren de Aragua, the proclamation says, is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization with thousands of members, many of whom have unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are conducting irregular warfare and hostile actions, operating in conjunction with Cartel de los Soles, the Maduro regime-sponsored narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela, and committing murders, kidnappings, extortions, and human, drug, and weapons trafficking. On February 20, 2025, after consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of State had designated the group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under 8 U.S.C. 1189.
In its first section, the proclamation finds that the group is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States, undertaking hostile actions both directly and at the direction of the Maduro regime. On those findings, it proclaims that all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of the group, are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies, chargeable by virtue of their membership alone with actual hostility against the United States and a danger to the public peace or safety.
Regulations issued with the proclamation bar such Alien Enemies from entering or being found in any United States territory, subject anyone found to immediate apprehension and detention until removal, leave the place of detention and the destination of removal to the officers executing the regulations, and make property used for the group's hostile activity subject to seizure and forfeiture. The Attorney General was directed to prepare and publish a policy letter within 60 days and transmit it to the Chief Justice, the chief judges of the federal courts, and the governors of the states; the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security were charged with carrying out the apprehensions and removals, with all agencies and state and local law enforcement directed to collaborate.
The move was challenged in federal court in Washington the same day: five detained Venezuelans sued that morning, and Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued temporary restraining orders, first for the five plaintiffs and then for the full class of people subject to the proclamation, barring removals under it and ordering any deportation flights already in the air to return. The legal fight over whether a 1798 wartime statute could be used for peacetime immigration enforcement was under way. (Source: The White House)
Source: The White House
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于华盛顿的美国哥伦比亚特区联邦地区法院所在的普雷蒂曼联邦法院大楼——针对《外国敌人法》公告的诉讼即在该院审理（Ajay Suresh，CC BY 2.0，Wikimedia Commons）。 / Image: The E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, home of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where the challenge to the Alien Enemies Act proclamation was heard (Ajay Suresh, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons).
