TV News LIES

President Donald Trump's administration exceeded the scope of an 18th-century wartime law in using it to deport some Venezuelan migrants, a federal judge in Texas said on Thursday in barring the administration from using it to speed up deportations.

In a 36-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez ruled that the Trump administration could not rely on the Alien Enemies Act to detain or deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

"The historical record renders clear that the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute’s terms," wrote Rodriguez, who was appointed by Trump during his first term.

The Justice Department, which represents the administration in court, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green-card holder and Columbia University student who was detained for his activism, walked out of immigration detention on Wednesday after a federal judge in Vermont ordered his release.

Mahdawi had been detained and ordered deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.

“The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,” said Geoffrey Crawford, a US district judge, at a hearing on Wednesday, according to ABC News. “Mr Mahdawi, I will order you released.”

Mahdawi was arrested by Ice in Colchester, Vermont, while attending a naturalization interview.

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Detainees at the Bluebonnet immigrant detention center in the small city of Anson, Texas, sent the outside world a message this week: SOS.

With a Reuters drone flying nearby, 31 men formed the letters in the dirt yard of the facility on Monday.

Ten days earlier, dozens of Venezuelan detainees at the center were given notices by immigration officials that alleged they were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and subject to deportation under a wartime law, according to documents shown to Reuters, recorded video calls and court proceedings.

The families of seven detainees interviewed by Reuters said they were not gang members and that they refused to sign the document.

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A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Wednesday to ensure migrants held at Guantanamo Bay are given a chance to raise any concerns about their safety before being deported to El Salvador or countries other than their places of origin.

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston issued the order after immigrant rights advocates argued the administration had violated a court order he issued by flying four Venezuelans held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba to El Salvador on a flight conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Murphy in late March had issued a temporary restraining order, which he later extended into an injunction, restricting the Department of Homeland Security's ability to rapidly deport migrants to countries other than their own without allowing them to first raise concerns that they fear being persecuted or tortured in those third countries.

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has suspended a judge charged with two federal counts on allegations of trying to help an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest after he appeared in her courtroom.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan, 65, was charged April 25 with two federal counts of obstructing a U.S. agency and concealing an individual to prevent an arrest. She is accused of trying to help Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, avoid arrest by federal immigration officials after he appeared in her courtroom at the Milwaukee County Courthouse for a pretrial conference on April 18.

Under the Supreme Court's order, Dugan is not allowed to carry out her responsibilities as a Milwaukee County judge beginning April 29 "until further order of the court." Dugan will continue to be paid her $174,512 annual salary while on administrative leave.

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