Latest news with #AlienEnemy
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump DOJ Ordered ICE to Invade Homes Without Search Warrant
The Justice Department quietly invoked the Alien Enemies act last month to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents the power to conduct warrantless searches of people's homes as long as they suspect them to be an 'alien enemy.' USA Today obtained the memo that contained this order on Friday. 'As much as practicable, officers should follow the proactive procedures above—and have an executed Warrant of Apprehension and Removal—before contacting an Alien Enemy,' the memo reads. 'However, that will not always be realistic or effective in swiftly identifying and removing Alien Enemies.… An officer may encounter a suspected Alien Enemy in the natural course of the officer's enforcement activity, such as when apprehending other validated members of Tren de Aragua. Given the dynamic nature of enforcement operations, officers in the field are authorized to apprehend aliens upon a reasonable belief that the alien meets all four requirements to be validated as an Alien Enemy. This authority includes entering an Alien Enemy's residence to make an AEA apprehension where circumstances render it impracticable to first obtain a signed Notice and Warrant of Apprehension and Removal' (emphasis added). In the memo, the Justice Department defined an 'alien enemy' as anyone who is 14 years of age or older, not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, a citizen of Venezuela, and 'a member of the hostile enemy Tren de Aragua,' per the Alien Enemy Validation Guide, a document that has already been slammed by immigration experts. The broad definition has already resulted in the apprehension and deportation of more than 200 men to El Salvador who just happened to have tattoos, like gay makeup artist Andry José Hernández Romero. This type of order will likely lead to more indiscriminate arrests and wanton racial profiling. The memo, which is from March 14, is another massive departure from the U.S. immigration norms.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Justice Department Memo Claims Alien Enemies Act Allows Warrantless Home Searches and No Judicial Review
Newly uncovered guidance from the Justice Department claims the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) allows federal law enforcement officers to enter the houses of suspected gang members without a warrant and remove them from the country without any judicial review. In a March 14 memorandum, obtained by the open government group Property of the People through a public records request and first reported by USA Today, Attorney General Pam Bondi instructs federal law enforcement officers on how to carry out arrests on members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TDA), which President Donald Trump has declared are "alien enemies" under the AEA. The Trump administration has refused to disclose many of the operational details of its unprecedented invocation of the 1798 wartime law to send alleged TDA members to a prison in El Salvador under an agreement with that country's president, Nayib Bukele. The memo is one of the first public glimpses at the Trump administration's claims that it can identify, pursue, arrest, and deport migrants, unconstrained by the Fourth Amendment or due process. While the memo encourages officers to cooperate with federal prosecutors, it notes that "a judicial or administrative arrest warrant is not necessary to apprehend a validated Alien Enemy." The memo also allows officers to arrest suspects they encounter in the field "upon a reasonable belief that the alien meets all four requirements to be validated as an Alien Enemy." "This authority includes entering an Alien Enemy's residence to make an AEA apprehension where circumstances render it impracticable to first obtain a signed Notice and Warrant of Apprehension and Removal," the memo continues. The memo includes a previously published "Alien Enemy Validation Guide" that uses a scorecard to determine suspected TDA members. That scorecard includes alleged symbolic ties to the gang, such as tattoos and clothing. However, as multiple media outlets have reported, Venezuelan migrants have been flagged as violent gang members for generic and inoffensive tattoos, like an autism awareness symbol. Once a suspect is apprehended, Bondi claims they are "not entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge, to an appeal of the removal order to the Board of Immigration Appeals, or to a judicial review of the removal in any court of the United States." "The documents reveal the Trump administration has authorized every single law enforcement officer in the country, including traffic cops, to engage in immigrant roundups explicitly outside due process," Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People, said in a press release. "With Trump also pushing to deport U.S. citizens, we are lurching ever closer to authoritarian rule." Since the memo was issued, the Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that AEA detainees are subject to due process and can challenge their imprisonment through habeas corpus petitions. Several lower federal courts have also rejected the Trump administration's claims of AEA deportations being beyond judicial review. Last week, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, appointed by former President Ronald Reagan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, wrote that the Trump administration's claims "should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear." "The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order," Wilkinson warned. "Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done." The Justice Department did not immediately return an inquiry asking if it has updated or rescinded its guidance in light of the Supreme Court and other federal court's rulings. The post Justice Department Memo Claims Alien Enemies Act Allows Warrantless Home Searches and No Judicial Review appeared first on
Yahoo
30-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
ICE List Shows How Tattoos and Clothing Are Used to Label Immigrants as Gang Members
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has obtained a list from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that reveals just how terrifyingly easy it is for the government to designate a Venezuelan immigrant as an 'Alien Enemy,' including allowing ICE officers to declare tattoos and items of clothing as containing gang signs. Immigration Council Senior Fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick shared on X (formerly Twitter) a copy of the 'Alien Enemies Act Validation Guide' on Sunday. The guide outlines a point system ICE can use to deport immigrants it designates as members of the Tren de Aragua (TDA) gang and send them to the infamously cruel and inhumane Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador. Earlier this month, the administration flew nearly 300 Venezuelans to CECOT because it alleged they were members of TDA despite a court order instructing the government not to deport the immigrants. The administration has appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing judges do not have legal authority to halt its deportations. The ACLU and Democracy Forward have filed suit against the administration over the deportations, saying they violate the limits of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act and 'improperly attempt… to bypass the procedures and protections in immigration law.' According to the checklist, an ICE official must determine that the immigrant is a Venezuelan citizen older than 14. After that, the guide lays out a point system the agency created with different allegations and point allotments. Any conviction for violating 'federal or state law criminalizing or imposing civil penalties for activity related to TDA' constitutes 10 points. Self-identifying 'as a member or associate of TDA verbally or in writing to law enforcement… even if that self-identification to a law enforcement officer is unwitting, e.g., through lawful interception of communications' is also 10 points. Communicating with known TDA members is six points. A section titled 'Symbolism' allots four points for having 'tattoos denoting membership/loyalty to TDA' or wearing clothing 'to indicate allegiance to TDA.' Social media posts 'displaying symbols of TDA or depicting activity with other known members of TDA' get two points. In the 'Association' section, merely being in 'group photos with two or more known members of TDA' or living with known members of TDA is worth two points. Eight points or more is enough to classify immigrants 'validated as members of TDA.' For example, someone could be given six points for texting with a 'known member of TDA' and another three points for sending money to a 'known member' of TDA, Reichlin-Melnick pointed out. That totals to nine points, enough for deportation as an alleged TDA member. The guide notes that if all points are from the Symbolism and/or Association categories, agents should 'consult your supervisor and [the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor] before determining whether to validate the alien as a member of TDA.' But if a supervisor allows it, a Venezuelan adult in the U.S. who has tattoos and clothing an ICE officer says contain TDA symbols could be deported to CECOT for those reasons alone. It's a scary thought, especially considering the case of Neri Alvarado Borges, a native of Venezuela who ICE sent to CECOT with several dozen other Venezuelans the government accused — without due process — of affiliating with TDA. Alvarado told a friend that an ICE agent told him he was detained 'because of your tattoos.' 'We're finding and questioning everyone who has tattoos,' the ICE agent said, according to what Alvorado said to his friend, who spoke to Mother Jones. Alvarado has a tattoo of an autism awareness ribbon in tribute to his 15-year-old brother who is autistic. Even though Alvorado said an ICE agent later declared him 'clean' after searching his phone and hearing Alvorado's explanation of the meaning behind his tattoos (the agent reportedly said, 'I'm going to put down here that you have nothing to do with Tren de Aragua') they still sent him to CECOT where he remains. 'With this checklist, ICE can declare any Venezuelan an 'Alien Enemy' without ANY concrete evidence — based solely on an ICE officer's interpretation of tattoos and hand signs, or the bad luck of having a roommate ICE thinks is TDA,' Reichlin-Melnick wrote. 'This is why due process matters!' More from Rolling Stone ICE Is Canceling Students' Legal Status Without Informing Them or Their Schools: Report Trump Admits He's Open to Using 'Military Force' to Seize Greenland Trump Says He Is 'Very Angry' and 'Pissed Off' at Putin Over Ukraine Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
