Legal Experts Warn Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Allows Deportations Without Trial
A Venezuelan asylum seeker has reportedly been deported under the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime measure last invoked during World War II to intern thousands of Japanese, Italian, and German Americans in concentration camps on U.S. soil, including the infamous Manzanar Camp. The case has inflamed widespread outrage among immigration advocates, who warn that the act is being used to circumvent due process and forcibly remove individuals based on mere accusations.
Lindsay Toczylowski, founder and president of Immigrant Defense, took to social media to detail the troubling case of her client, an LGBTQ tattoo artist from Venezuela who sought asylum in the United States last year. Toczylowski detailed the case in a series of posts on Twitter. Despite having a strong claim to protection, he was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) upon arrival after officials alleged his tattoos were linked to the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal organization.
“Our client’s tattoos are not gang-related. They are benign and reflect his work in the arts,” Toczylowski stated. “ICE submitted photos of his tattoos as ‘evidence,’ despite there being no other proof of any criminal affiliation.”
The Immigrant Defense legal team was preparing to present evidence disproving ICE’s claims at an immigration court hearing, but the client never arrived at the scheduled proceedings.
Toczylowski said the legal team last spoke with the asylum seeker on Thursday, the day before his hearing. However, ICE failed to bring him to court, and the government attorney could not explain why he was absent. The judge rescheduled the hearing for Monday, but the asylum seeker has since vanished from the system.
The legal team attempted to track their client’s whereabouts, reaching out to the Texas facility where he was last detained—more than 1,300 miles from the San Diego detention center where his case began. They were told he was no longer there and, on Sunday morning, his name disappeared from ICE’s online detainee locator system.
“We believe he has been forcibly transferred to El Salvador,” Toczylowski said. “We are horrified tonight thinking about what might happen to him now.”
The Alien Enemies Act, part of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, grants the president sweeping authority to detain or remove individuals from the U.S. based solely on their nationality or suspected ties to enemy organizations. The law does not require concrete evidence before deportation, raising concerns among legal experts and human rights organizations.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council echoed these concerns, stating that the asylum seeker was set to present evidence proving he was not involved in Tren de Aragua at his scheduled hearing. Instead, he now faces potential imprisonment in El Salvador.
“It should frighten anyone who believes in due process that the Trump administration disappeared an asylum seeker because of a tattoo they claimed was linked to a gang,” Reichlin-Melnick said. “They had NO other evidence. That was it.”
Immigration advocates argue that the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act is setting a dangerous precedent, allowing individuals to be deported without fair hearings or the opportunity to defend themselves in court.
“This is a blatant violation of fundamental human rights,” said Toczylowski. “Our client came to the U.S. for protection and has instead spent months in ICE detention, been falsely accused, and now possibly deported into danger.”
