A federal judge in West Texas has joined others in temporarily blocking the deportations of Venezuelan immigrants under the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act.
U.S. District Judge David Briones of El Paso issued the order Friday, directing the release of a couple accused of belonging to a Venezuelan criminal gang, the Associated Press reported.
He wrote that government lawyers “have not demonstrated they have any lawful basis” to continue detaining the couple on suspected alien enemies charges.
The couple is accused of belonging to Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration has designated a foreign terrorist organization.
President Donald Trump has invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which allows the president to deport noncitizens aged 14 or older from countries with which the U.S. is at war. Shortly after taking office, Trump declared members of the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 transactional gangs as terrorist organizations, and is attempting to deport members of those gangs under the act.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily halted the deportations of Venezuelans held in northern Texas under the Act.
The high court also ruled that anyone facing deportation under Trump’s declaration is entitled to a federal court hearing and “a reasonable time” to challenge their removal, the AP noted.
Briones’ ruling applies only to Venezuelan immigrants in federal custody within his West Texas jurisdiction. Federal judges in Colorado, South Texas, and New York have issued similar orders, said the newswire.
He required the government to provide 21 days’ notice before attempting to remove anyone in West Texas—contrasting with the 12‐hour notice the government considers sufficient.
The El Paso decision comes amid clashes between the Trump administration and local authorities over the president’s broad immigration crackdown, which he campaigned on during the 2024 election cycle. It was issued the same day the FBI arrested a Milwaukee judge accused of helping a man evade immigration enforcement.
Briones, a Clinton appointee, said that “due process requirements for the removal of noncitizens are long established” under the Immigration and Nationality Act as well as previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
“There is no doubt the Executive Branch’s unprecedented peacetime use of wartime power has caused chaos and uncertainty for individual petitions as well as the judicial branch in how to manage and evaluate the Executive’s claims of Tren de Aragua membership, and the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act as a whole,” Briones wrote in his ruling.
Julio Cesar Sanchez Puentes and Luddis Norelia Sanchez Garcia, who were granted temporary protected status after entering the U.S. from Mexico in October 2022, had that status terminated on April 1.
They were arrested on April 16 at the El Paso airport as they prepared to return to their Washington, D.C., home, where they live with their three children. They had traveled to Texas for an April 14 pretrial hearing in their removal proceedings, the AP noted.
Court documents noted that the case was continued until June 23. The couple was allowed to remain free on bail.
Meanwhile, on Friday, Trump administration lawyers urged a federal appeals court to halt a lower court’s contempt proceedings against the government, arguing that Chief District Judge James Boasberg’s continued interference in last month’s deportations to El Salvador has created a “needless constitutional confrontation.”
Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign said Boasberg is undermining the president’s foreign policy authority by ordering the government to return hundreds of Venezuelan gang suspects or face criminal charges, the Washington Times reported on Friday.
Ensign also argued that a contempt finding is unwarranted because Boasberg’s original order was so vague that the parties are still disputing its meaning more than a month later.
“The district court’s criminal contempt order invites needless constitutional confrontation,” Ensign argued in a brief to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
