The Trump administration’s attempt to rendition people to El Salvador without due process has hit another judicial roadblock. Judge Charlotte Sweeney in Colorado has blocked the government from using the improper Alien Enemies Act to remove noncitizens from the US without due process.
The administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act is both legally absurd and morally offensive. The history of the Alien and Sedition Acts is a shameful moment in American history, with three of the four acts long since repealed or expired. The surviving Alien Enemies Act has only been used three times in our history — during actual declared wars — and each use represents a stain on American principles of due process.
But here, it’s even worse. The administration isn’t even pretending there’s a real war. Instead, Trump simply declared by executive fiat that a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA), constitutes an “invading force” under the control of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro — a transparently false claim that ignores both reality and the Constitution’s assignment of war powers to Congress.
The court methodically dismantles the administration’s attempt to redefine basic constitutional concepts. Judge Sweeney explains that “invasion” has always meant military action by another nation — not, as the administration claims, criminal activity by a gang. The ruling points out (quoting other rulings) that this understanding of invasion “echoes throughout the Constitution” and “in every instance, it is used in a military sense.” The administration’s attempt to characterize TdA’s activities as an “invasion” fails “at a bare minimum,” regardless of how dramatically the government describes the gang’s “hostile actions.”
The opinion reads like a basic civics lesson for an administration that seems to need one. The judge appears particularly unimpressed with government lawyers trying to argue that “unambiguous words are ambiguous” just to justify their novel interpretation.
Similarly, the court rejected the administration’s attempt to transform a criminal gang into a “foreign nation or government” merely by asserting links to Maduro’s regime:
At bottom, the Proclamation fails to adequately find or assert TdA is a “foreign nation or government,” § 21, sufficient to justify the Act’s invocation. Indeed, if TdA was such a “foreign nation or government,” id., there would be no need for it to “undertak[e] hostile actions . . . at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela,”
From there, the judge calls out the horrifying lack of due process by the US government in trying to traffic these individuals to El Salvador:
This does not, as discussed during oral argument, instruct individuals that they have a right to pursue a habeas challenge. At most, the Notice “permits” individuals to make “a phone call.” Id. (emphasis added). And while the Notice requires government employees to certify they have read the Notice to an individual “in a language he or she understands,” this does not guarantee individuals are provided the Notice in a language they understand “in a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief,” J. G. G., 2025 WL 1024097, at *2. Vaguely granting someone permission to make one phone call if they ask—with, at most, a verbal read-aloud of the Notice that on its face says nothing about the right to seek habeas relief—does not rise to the level of “allow[ing] [detainees] to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before [their] removal occurs.” Id. (emphasis added); Mullane v. Cent. Hanover Bank & Tr. Co., 339 U.S. 306, 314 (1950) (“An elementary and fundamental requirement of due process . . . is notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections.” … This is all the truer where, as Petitioners observe, the notice gives no timeframe for removal or even informs an individual how to contest their removal—much less, noted above, that notice judicial review could be pursued.
The judge also addresses the very different beliefs between the plaintiffs’ ACLU lawyers and the government on just how much notice people deserve to allow them to seek due process before being shipped to a foreign concentration camp. Remember, the Supreme Court explicitly said, just weeks ago, that there must be a “reasonable” amount of time for due process.
The DOJ argued that 24 hours was sufficient notice — a position that would effectively prevent any meaningful legal challenge. While the ACLU requested 30 days, the court settled on 21 days and laid out specific requirements for adequate notice:
Such notice must state the government intends to remove individuals pursuant to the Act and Proclamation. It must also provide notice of a right to seek judicial review, and inform individuals they may consult an attorney regarding their detainment and the government’s intent to remove them. Such notice must be written in a language the individual understands. These requirements are reasonable to ensure individuals are “actually inform[ed],” Mullane, 339 U.S. at 315, of their rights and the nature of proceedings against them, consistent with Supreme Court precedent on this very issue, and crafted to the “appropriate nature of the case,” see J. G. G., 2025 WL 1024097, *2 (quoting Mullane, 339 U.S. at 313. See also id. (“The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.”).
In issuing the temporary restraining order, Judge Sweeney cut through the government’s arguments with a simple observation about what’s really at stake: without court intervention, these individuals face “significant risk” of being illegally trafficked to a foreign gulag. The court emphasized that its order merely enforces fundamental constitutional principles:
Practically speaking, a TRO would inflict little more on Respondents than ensure they adhere to the requirement the Supreme Court has already imposed on them: give Petitioners and putative class members adequate notice, with adequate time, to adequately pursue habeas relief
Expect the government to appeal and/or try to weasel its way out of what the judge orders here, because that’s what they’ve been doing in every one of these cases. But, for now, it’s another strong ruling against the fascist Trump administration’s efforts to disappear people to a foreign concentration camp under an inapplicable law without any due process.
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