Trump Declares Gangs as Alien Enemies; Federal Judge Blocks Move | CLIP | Crossroads

Look, over 200 gang members from Trende Aragua in MS-13, they've been deported from the United States, this is probably the first of many, and they've now arrived with a new home, a prison in El Salvador. Now videos were posted online showing the gang members being taken from the planes, heads held down, heads shaved, sent to the country's terrorism confinement center, which is being paid for now by the U.S. at a very good deal. The deportations of all these individuals follow recent actions from President Donald Trump to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. Donald Trump has now officially declared the United States is under invasion by Trende Aragua, a gang, and also by Venezuela by extension. Now a legal battle is starting there as well. A federal judge blocked Trump invoking the act, and then the judge also ordered that the deportation of gang members be stopped, even said the planes have to turn around and people have to just return all the gang members to America. The president of El Salvador responded to the judge and said, too late. Not even joking. Now look, first off on the orders, as Donald Trump discussed when he was on the campaign trail, he has now invoked the Alien Enemies Act. He suggested he'd do it, he has now officially done it. This is an 18th century law in place for most of America's history. It was put into action actually shortly after the, you know, forming of the United States as a country, and this basically allows the Trump administration to use very broad powers to carry out mass deportations, effectively declaring that we're under attack, under invasion, there's a war going on effectively, and in order to protect the people of the United States, we need to treat the Now, this is the official order from Donald Trump invoking this. The White House, it says TDA is a designated foreign terrorist organization with thousands of members, many of whom have unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are conducting irregular warfare, that's your war, and undertaking hostile actions against the United States. TDA operates in conjunction with the cartel De Los Soles, the Nicolas Maduro regime-sponsored narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela. Suggesting again the individual leading Venezuela, some people call him the unofficial leader, technically he's a leader, but there's a he has ties to that cartel, and Trump says it commits brutal crimes including murders, kidnappings, rapes, extortion, human trafficking, weapons trafficking. He said TDA has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens, undermining public safety, and supporting the Maduro regime, again the Venezuelan leader's goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States. Suggesting that actually the U.S. is not the only target of this type of operation, suggesting that Venezuela is actively trying to basically subvert countries throughout the Americas, which would include Canada, Latin America, technically both North and South America are America and Central America. Now he says this, TDA is closely aligned with and indeed has infiltrated the Maduro regime, including its military and law enforcement apparatus. He's suggesting effectively that the entire regime in Venezuela is being run as kind of a puppet regime of this gang, and he says like El Asami, Nicolas Maduro, who claims to act as Venezuela's president and asserts control over the security forces and other authorities in Venezuela, also maintains close ties to regime-sponsored narco-terrorists. He was actually sanctioned as part of this before. You know, Maduro leads the regime-sponsored enterprise cartel De La Sols, which coordinates with and relies on TDA, Tren de Aragua, and other organizations to carry out its objective of using illegal narcotics as a weapon to flood the United States. In 2020, Maduro and other regime members were charged with narco-terrorism and other crimes in connection with this plot against America. Now look, this actually is true, by the way, and the recognition of this, it's not even partisan. This is tech, even though it's being painted very partisan right now, it's not technically partisan. During the Biden administration, the Democrats, they also had a very similar stance on Maduro. Biden took very strong actions against Nicolas Maduro, and former president Joe Biden even officially recognized the opposition leader of Venezuela, who's again seeking sanctuary in Spain. He is recognized as the country's official president in exile, and Biden referred to Maduro as being illegitimate and is having ties to the cartel that Trump is mentioning as well, meaning it's being painted very partisan right now. This was not technically partisan, at least the stance on Maduro. But what's important with this context is that for Donald Trump to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, this, you know, late 1700s act shortly after the founding of the U.S., basically declaring we're under invasion, legal arguments have said that there needs to be an actual war, or you have to be under an invasion from a specific country. It's a bit of a gray area saying we're under invasion by a gang that has been designated a terrorist organization, if you want to go by the specific language of the law. But of course, the world has changed quite a bit since the late 1700s, and we now understand that we can be at war with the terrorist organization. The War on Terror, the entire designation around that has made it so that, well, war with an organization is also a war, not necessarily war with a country. But it seems that Trump is also expanding this to suggest that Venezuela is the country, and that we're not going to war with Venezuela per se, but instead against the gangs that are puppeteering it. Now it seems that Trump is using the terror designation of Tren de Aragua alongside the group's ties to Venezuela and the cartels there to make this designation, and we'll have to see if it holds up. Trump states in the order, quote, I find and declare that TDA, Tren de Aragua, is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States. He says TDA is undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare, unconventional war, meaning this is a war, against the territory of the United States, both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela. A proxy war being fought with the gang, in other words. Now he says, under this order, Trump says basically all individuals described are now subject to immediate apprehension, detention, and removal from the United States, and it also notes they will not be permitted residence in the United States. Now what does that mean for illegal immigrants and, of course, the declaration of an invasion against the country? Well, based on the technical language of the order, it appears this would mainly just be targeted at gang members with Tren de Aragua. It could be used to speed up their deportations. There are thousands of them. This would not be the deportation probably of the millions we may have been expecting with the declaration of a foreign invasion. The other technicality with that is if Tren de Aragua is seen working with other gangs, which gangs tend to have a lot of cross-pollination between them, Trump may be able to use this to target other gangs across the United States. They all tend to be very deeply intertwined when it comes to the movement of drugs, the carrying out of illegal activities. Most gangs, even deeply race-based gangs, will work with other gangs, including ones they would otherwise be opposed to. For example, even the white nationalist gangs, like Aryan Brotherhood, they'll work with black gangs or Mexican gangs. A lot of gangs, unfortunately, do tend to be race-based, meaning, of course, that this will mainly target Tren de Aragua, but could actually apply to a lot of others by extension. Now the language does not suggest this deportation order is going to apply to just your average illegal immigrant, meaning you're probably not going to see the restaurant worker at the local restaurant get sent to El Salvador to go work in their forced labor camp or something. You probably won't see that. You're not going to see the guys picking strawberries or something shipped off to El Salvador, probably. This does seem to be directed more at what is really an unconventional war. Now Trump also directs the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to prepare and publish a letter on this policy within the next 60 days. Now it's going to be challenged a lot until then, but the official legal argument within three months. Now this will be sent to the chief justice, the chief judge of every circuit court of appeals, the chief judge of every district and territorial court in the country, meaning not even just states, but even, for example, like Saipan and Guam and Puerto Rico and maybe even tribal governments, and also the governor of every state and territory in the United States, as well as the top legal authorities. And basically it seems that Trump is going through legal channels in the Justice Department to carry this out, and will then have the Department of Justice communicate this as an order to all the legal systems in the country. So right now we see the legal side of this advancing forward. Until then it's going to be challenged. On that point, a federal judge has now blocked the order. A judge is saying that he has the authority to stop the President of the United States from declaring we're under invasion. And the judge even ordered that the deportation flights carrying the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members, that the flights have to turn around and they have to bring these gang members back to the United States. This is the New York Post. It said a federal judge temporarily blocked President Trump on Saturday from invoking the 18th century Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport alleged Venezuelan gang members without a hearing, ordering any flights carrying these supposed criminals to turn around, saying yeah you're trying to deport them, bring them right back. U.S. District Judge James Borsberg quickly ordered the Trump administration to halt all removals after the commander-in-chief signed off on a presidential action invoking the 1798 law aimed at targeting Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, the Washington Post has reported. And it's a chief judge in the District of Columbia, Washington D.C. judge, said he heard that the flights are actively departing and directed U.S. officials to have planes in the air carrying migrants, illegal immigrants, returned to the United States, the outlet reported, and said quote any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States however that is accomplished. Balsberg the judge reportedly wrote saying look if they're on the tarmac if they're getting ready to take off even if they're in the air turn those planes around bring those gang members back because he's saying Trump cannot send these people there and he said quote make sure it's complied with immediately and it's a temporary ruling will put a 14-day restraining order on the use of the wartime act meaning Trump cannot designate the run to invasion which the Trump administration hopes to use to deport any migrants it says illegal aliens it identifies as a gang member without following normal criminal and immigration channels you know it's a new hearing has been scheduled for Friday as a pause will be put in place for those deported under the alien enemies act now after blocking the deportations the judge issued a second order which grants class action certification to all non-citizens who could be deported under Trump's proclamation meaning all those gang members now have the ability to file class action certifications against the United States and the complaint was filed with support from the ACLU and democracy forward and it challenges Trump's use of the alien enemies act stating quote it cannot be used here against nationals of a country Venezuela with whom the United States is not at war which is not invading the United States they say that's the debatable part and which has not launched a predatory incursion into the United States those last two parts are going to be the ones most debated on right because remember the alien enemies act isn't just war it's also invasion and if Maduro has talked about sending people here which he has by the way Trump can actually very easily invoke it but again it will be challenged