By Jan Wolfe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A federal appeals court will hear oral arguments on Monday in what is likely to be a decisive lawsuit over whether President Donald Trump’s administration can use an 18th-century law to speed up deportations.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing whether a group of detainees at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, can be deported under the Alien Enemies Act.
The court hearing is set to begin at 2:00 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT).
The Trump administration has said the detainees are members of Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan gang. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents some of the detainees, has disputed the claims of gang membership and says many of its clients have legitimate asylum claims.
The 5th Circuit, an intermediate appeals court based in New Orleans, has a reputation as one of the most conservative in the country.
In a March 14 proclamation, Trump said he would use the Act to swiftly detain and deport members of Tren de Aragua. Trump asserted that the gang is a state-sponsored international terrorist organization that has invaded United States territory.
The 1798 law has historically only been used in wartime, and is best known for its use to intern Japanese, Italian and German immigrants during World War Two.
The Supreme Court ruled in April that challenges to removal under the law must be brought in the federal judicial districts where detainees are being held.
The court said it was not resolving the validity of the administration’s reliance on that law to carry out the deportations.
Since then, challenges to the president’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act have been unfolding in courts across the country, and several judges have blocked deportations under the law within their judicial districts.
The case before the 5th Circuit briefly reached the Supreme Court in May. Without weighing in on the merits of the ACLU’s arguments, the high court granted a request by the organization that removals be halted while the case unfolds.
The 5th Circuit case has moved through the courts quickly since then, and is widely expected to be the one in which the Supreme Court eventually decides whether Trump’s March 14 proclamation invoking the statute was constitutional.
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Andrea Ricci)
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