Trump veers towards courts clash over migrant flights

WASHINGTON: United States President Donald Trump barrelled towards a showdown with the courts on Monday (Mar 17) after his administration expelled alleged members of a Venezuelan gang under little-used, centuries-old wartime legislation.

Trump, already pushing the law to its limits on several fronts, also claimed he had annulled pardons issued by Joe Biden, on the grounds that his Democratic predecessor supposedly used an autopen for his signature.

The Republican's moves to amass power in the executive have increasingly raised fears that he will defy the judiciary, upending or at least reinterpreting the constitutional balance of power in the US.

A US federal judge ordered a hearing later on Monday on whether the White House had deliberately ignored his orders by flying more than 200 people to El Salvador, where the Trump administration is paying the authorities to imprison the deportees.

Justice Department lawyers told Judge James Boasberg that the deportees had already left the US when the judge issued his written order barring their departure, according to media reports.

They also argued that the district judge had no jurisdiction once the planes were out of US airspace.

The Justice Department had previously sought to cancel the hearing, arguing that the case interferes with "the president's national-security and foreign affairs authority".

When Boasberg said it would go ahead, government lawyers filed a motion with an appeals court seeking to have the judge removed from the case.

Boasberg described the hearing as a "fact-finding" exercise and said he did not plan to issue an immediate ruling.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters meanwhile that the use of the obscure 1798 Alien Enemies Act was justified as Trump had declared members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang as a foreign terrorist group.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said all the migrants sent to El Salvador were either MS-13 "criminals" wanted in their home country or Venezuelans alleged to be part of Tren de Aragua.

"They weren't supposed to be in our country to begin with," Rubio told Fox News Radio host Guy Benson.

"I would say that every single person that was on that plane was in the country illegally, one way or the other."

The Alien Enemies Act was last used in World War II to intern tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans.

Rights groups have warned that wartime legislation could be used as cover for mass deportations without due process.
 

“For people who have been in the US for longer than two years, generally, they have a right to go in front of an immigration judge... and seek certain kinds of protections, like asylum,” said law professor Jean Lantz Reisz.

“I think the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act is to bypass that and to kind of skirt around any sort of judicial review.”

Reisz, who is co-director of the USC Gould School of Law’s Immigration Clinic, which provides pro bono representation, added that Trump’s use of the act is questionable and unlawful.

The law specifically allows a US president to detain or deport non-citizens from a country considered hostile to the US during war time.

“It's really concerning if a president – who doesn't have the power to change the laws – is changing the laws in his actions by ignoring the laws or the courts,” she told CNA's Asia First programme.

"If Congress wanted to give the president more power in immigration, then they could pass laws to do that. (But) they haven't done that.”

"VOID, VACANT"

Trump promised a crackdown on undocumented migration during his 2024 election campaign and has repeatedly painted a dark picture of a wave of crimes by migrants that is at odds with official figures.

His administration has increasingly appeared to be spoiling for a legal fight that will end up in the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court, becoming a test case for the extent of executive power.

Trump again tested the boundaries on Monday when he declared he was cancelling pardons issued by Biden in the last days of his presidency to shield Trump critics from future retribution.

Trump said on his Truth Social platform that the pardons "are hereby declared void, vacant, and of no further force or effect, because of the fact they were done by Autopen."

US presidents have long used autopens, including to sign Bills into law, and there was no evidence Biden had used the signature device on the pardons.

It was unclear what, if any, authority Trump has to void presidential pardons.

Asked by reporters early on Monday whether everything Biden signed with an autopen should be voided, Trump said: "I think so. It's not my decision, that'll be up to a court."

Biden issued pardons to former senior Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney and other members of the congressional committee that investigated the Jan 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by Republicans stirred up by Trump's false claims to have won the 2020 election.

Other recipients included former COVID-19 pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci, retired general Mark Milley, and close family members including Biden's son Hunter.

Trump repeatedly promised "retribution" against his political opponents while running in the 2024 election and has sought to crush opposition since taking office.

The president was on Monday visiting the Kennedy Center in Washington, the top arts venue where he installed himself as chairman and ousted the leadership a month ago as part of a war on "woke".