The freakout continues over the Trump administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to deport over 200 members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua en masse – and take them to a place where they can’t just try to make their way back to the border. CNN’s Kasie Hunt tried her level best on Monday evening to “gotcha” Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, over the issue, repeating the claim that Trump was ignoring a lawful court order and that the administration would just decide to ignore any court order it didn’t agree with. She failed miserably.
You really need to watch the whole nine-plus minutes, but I’ll share the transcript of some of the juiciest parts of the exchange after the video.
As we’ve reported, the Tren de Aragua members were taken to El Salvador and are being housed at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). Just over 100 of the passengers were removed from the United States under Title VIII removal proceedings, and 137 were removed pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act. Twenty-three of the people on the flight were Salvadorians and members of MS-13; El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele expressed gratitude for the return of those criminals so they could face justice in El Salvador’s system. Chief U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg verbally ordered the already airborne planes to return to the United States, but the administration did not comply because the planes were already outside American airspace when the order was issued. In addition, the administration argues that Boasberg doesn’t have jurisdiction anyway because Trump was exercising his powers under Article 2 of the Constitution.
Still, Hunt’s first question was:
“So, you called the judge’s order just earlier today, quote, “patently unlawful,” end quote, and said that it was an assault on democracy itself. Does that mean that the administration is ignoring this order and might you ignore future court orders that meet the criteria you laid out?”
Miller’s answer:
The president of the United States and his administration reserve all rights under the Constitution to conduct national security operations in defense of the United States. The Alien Enemies Act, which was passed into law by the founding generation of this country, men like John Adams, was written explicitly to give the president the authority to repel an alien invasion of the United States. That is not something that a district court judge has any authority whatsoever to interfere with, to enjoin, to restrict, or to restrain any way.
You can read the law yourself. There’s not one clause in that law that makes it subject to judicial review, let alone district court review.
Hunt tries to school Miller and anchor-splain to him how the legal system works, essentially saying that obviously, this all has to go through the normal legal channels. Miller further educates her:
“Well, so first of all, there’s a term in law, ‘justiciable.’ This is not justiciable. In other words, this is not subject to judicial remedy. When the president is exercising his Article 2 powers to defend the country against an invasion or to repel a foreign terrorist that is unlawfully in the country, he’s exercising his core Article 2 powers as commander in chief —
“This is a very important point. This is a Title 50 authority. It’s a commander in chief authority. So, just to ask you a simple question. You talk about how the system works. Does a district court judge have the right to direct or enjoin troop movements overseas? Yes or no?”
She then claims that we have to be in a declared war for the Alien Enemies Act to apply, meaning that we have to have declared war against Venezuela.
Let’s review the text of the Alien Enemies Act, which Miller also explained to her (emphasis mine):
Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies.
Apparently, Hunt doesn’t understand how punctuation works because the text clearly states that we don’t need to be in a declared war for Trump or any president to exercise authority under the Act.
So, what needs to be done?
There needs to be an “invasion or predatory incursion” that’s “perpetrated, attempted, or threatened” against U.S. territory “by any foreign nation or government,” and the President needs to make a “public proclamation of the event.
On March 15, Trump issued a proclamation declaring that Tren de Aragua is “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion…both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.”
In case Ms. Hunt is confused, here’s a screenshot of the proclamation from the White House’s website. We added a box around the words “A proclamation” and arrows to direct her to that verbiage.
Miller also addressed the complete lunacy of Boasberg ordering the administration to not deport ANY Venezuelans unless they go through him:
What we are expecting is the Supreme Court to say what has always been the case, which is when the president is using his powers as commander in chief, those determinations are not subject to judicial review. In other words, the president’s designation of Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization and as an alien enemy are part of his inherent plenary authority.
How are you going to expel illegal alien invaders from our country who are raping little girls, who are murdering little girls, if each and every deportation has to be adjudicated in a district court judge? It — that means you have no country, it means you have no sovereignty, it means you have no future.
It is fundamentally incompatible to have a country and have individual expulsions adjudicated by a single district court judge.
He’s absolutely right, and hopefully, SCOTUS will step in soon and end the insanity.
Thanks to President Trump, illegal immigration into our great country has virtually stopped. Despite the radical left’s lies, new legislation wasn’t needed to secure our border, just a new president.
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Don’t you just love the way Stephen handles these little snotty CNN reporters?? YES, and he does so handily.