A federal judge in west Texas has joined other courts in temporarily stopping the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants under an old wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act.
U.S. District Judge David Briones in El Paso made the decision on Friday while also ordering the release of a couple accused of being part of a Venezuelan gang. Briones said in his ruling that government lawyers “have not demonstrated they have any lawful basis” to keep holding the couple under suspicion of being enemy aliens.
A message sent to the couple’s attorney was not returned on Saturday.
The couple is said to be members of Tren de Aragua, a group the Trump administration has labeled as a foreign terrorist organization. Trump is using the Alien Enemies Act from 1798, which allows the president to deport noncitizens aged 14 and up if they are from a country the U.S. is at war with.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily stopped deportations of Venezuelans being held in northern Texas under this law. The court also said that anyone facing deportation because of Trump’s order must first have a hearing in federal court and be given “a reasonable time” to challenge their removal.
Briones’ order affects only Venezuelans in federal custody in his part of Texas. Federal judges in Colorado, south Texas, and New York have already made similar decisions. Briones told the government that it must give a 21-day notice before trying to deport anyone in west Texas, compared to the 12 hours the government says is enough.
This case in El Paso comes as the Trump administration faces conflict with local officials over his strict immigration policies. Briones made his decision on the same day the FBI arrested a Milwaukee judge accused of helping someone avoid immigration officers.
Venezuelan migrants deported from the US arrive at Simon Bolivar International AirportBriones, who was nominated to the court in 1994 by President Bill Clinton, said that “due process requirements for the removal of noncitizens are long established” under the Immigration and Nationality Act and past Supreme Court decisions.
“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.
The couple, Julio Cesar Sanchez Puentes and Luddis Norelia Sanchez Garcia, had been given temporary protected status after coming into the U.S. from Mexico in October 2022. They were told that their protected status ended on April 1.
They were arrested on April 16 at the El Paso airport while getting ready to fly back to their home in Washington, D.C., where they live with their three children. They had gone to Texas for a pretrial hearing on April 14 connected to their removal case. That hearing was delayed until June 23, and the couple was allowed to stay free on bail, according to court records.
