US deports Venezuelans despite court order | Hacker News Reader

US deports Venezuelans despite court order

bbc.com

75 pointsj_maffe46 comments

I encourage you to read the government's appeal to the DC Circuit Court. It is terrifying. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69742127/01208720432/jg...

The government is saying that it can declare that transnational crime is an "invasion" under the Alien Enemies Act, and that the courts cannot review this decision. Therefore, they can arrest, deport, or transfer to a prison in a third country, any non-citizen and the courts have no power to intervene or review the decision.

Transnational crime will always exist, and it is present in many countries. So if you're a citizen of Italy and a lawful permanent resident of the US, they can arrest you, accuse you of being in the mafia, and send you to a prison in El Salvador, and you will have no legal recourse. I don't even think they would need that fig leaf since the courts would have no power to review their actions.

That's the law. Perhaps we shouldn't give the president, or any one person, that much authority?

(When was the last declared war in the USA??)

The law is pretty clearly about a literal invasion or military incursion, not a metaphorical "invasion". If the Alien Enemies Act was designed for transnational crime, then it would not be an emergency law - it could be invoked at any time for a whole host of countries.

The law doesn't allow deporting to a different country to jail them, which is happening here. I'd be much less concerned if they were going back to Venezuela, however, they're going to a special prison in El Salvador that we pay for, but isn't under our legal system.

I would also say that I was, am still are, totally against Gitmo, as that was illegal as well, but less illegal, as we ran the facility.

Law doesn’t matter with this administration.

SCOTUS decided the president was exempt from the law and the consequences are obvious…

Do you remember when Joe defied the supreme court for student loans?

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/2932356/...

For some reason I'm a lot less worried about that.

Good, because it didn't happen!

He didn't ignore it, he tried to achieve the same outcome via a different method. That's very different then just ignoring the order entirely.

That is NOT what the SCOTUS decision said at all. This is a hysterical comment that’s not cool on HN.

Here’s the ruling which talks about what Presidential actions carry executive immunity and when they do not (Syllabus (2), when authority is shared by Congress). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

They have expanded it to the point the point of the lines they drew are meaningless.

An interesting question is if/when there will be big protests. Ignoring a judge is a breach of constitutional order, and if people don’t speak up for Venezuelan “gang members”, it becomes normalized, and quickly can escalate. I think we’ve all been waiting to see how long it would take to get here (if ever). Now what next???

People are too economically enslaved to mass protest.

People do protest…

Could people do a strike that would cripple key industries or cause massive disruption to the government?

Would it matter to an administration that has no problems with government being crippled? Industries who are not in power?

For a day or so

If it fits in the schedule of two jobs, kids, etc

Not in a way that convinces the ruling class to change their ways.

I think that rarely happens anywhere. That’s a high bar.

I’d argue elections are more impactful.

I’d look up general strike

I know what that is.

You say that like historical general strikers were more economically independent than today.

I doubt people were as much in debt historically as the average American is today.

They didn't have relatively easy access to credit while striking either.

A Gaddafi-esque exit at the WH or that gaudy resort he loves playing golf at so much.

I don't think protests will matter. Only if republican voters take issue then maybe some congressmen could take a stand. Currently the more reasonable hope is that the judicial branch escalates this to the supreme court.

This poses an interesting legal question. Since the judge ruled once the plane was in international airspace, would the US have jurisdiction? Or would say mercantile laws or airspace laws apply making it a weird legal hack to deport these "gang members"?

The judge specifically said that he did not have jurisdiction over deportees who had already landed on foreign soil, but could order planes in the air to return.

If US law doesn't matter to US planes run by the US government, then...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_flights

There won't be a big protest over this because there is already too much fragmentation of protests and only so much organization and time, and also people are cowards.

In the last two weeks I've been to 3 protests in the NYC area:

- Stand with Ukraine

- Stand for Science

- Tesla Takedown

In the same time there have been protest for Khalil and a protest against the entitlement cuts, as well as protests in support of Veterans.

However, this (wrongful and illegal arrest/detention/deportation) _should_ be the biggest protest, because if Trump backed off all of the other things and was able to get away with normalizing this use of DoJ and federal law enforcement to disappear people into the legal system, then nobody will protest anything out of legitimate fear of being disappeared.

My observation of most Americans protesting is that they are doing it for the social/emotional aspects and aren't doing it with the intent of putting themselves in any real risk... and I think what you'll see is that when things get REALLY serious, those people will say things like "I was out there from 2017 - 2024 and protests didn't do anything, I'm not going to risk my career/family/well-being/life anymore for nothing".

> There won't be a big protest over this because there is already too much fragmentation of protests and only so much organization and time, and also people are cowards.

There won’t be a protest over this because the optics are bad. Democrats already learned their lesson that defending violent gang members doesn’t work in their favor because of the whole MS-13/“Animals” stuff back in 2019. There is simply no way to oppose this without looking sympathetic to murderous thugs.

Protests are invasions

Also "Doctor and Professor Is Deported to Lebanon Despite a Judge’s Order" https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/us/brown-university-rasha...

American judicial jurisprudence is paramount to American business interests and informed discourse is vital to anyone wishing to conduct a successful enterprise.

That this is flagged is concerning... as it amounts to saying court decisions, compliance, and enforcement, are irrelevant to this forum. As we saw on the thread yesterday by a YC immigration lawyer there is a real immediate impact to his community and it should be discussed not banned.

The “discussion” seems one-sided and any dissent is downvoted to oblivion. Maybe that is why these are flagged by people. They are not discussions.

we are going to find how just how many things in current system run on honor basis. this administration will try to push past all limits.

problem is it will be a race to bottom going forwards.

Not just deports but sends them to a supermax prison in El Salvador without any trial. Not much innocent till proven guilty going on. And probably some of the people they round up will be innocent.

I loved this "Five Questions About Trump's Alien Enemy Act Proclamation", which runs through a lot of the legal questions at stake (based on existing case law).

(Whether or not this is a legal government is not covered.)

https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/132-five-questions-about-trum...

It's curious that a lot of Venezuelans campaigned for Trump and this is the outcome at the end. I doubt anyone could have seen this coming, for sure.

Do citizen Venezuelans want gang members here just because they share the same homeland?

Do you think Venezuelans who campaigned for Trump/the Republicans want members of a violent prison gang to remain in the country they call their new home, given their nationality and with that themselves a bad name?

They'll be pleased to see Trump make good on his promises just like most people are pleased to see illegal gang bangers removed from the country.

If these two hundred and something folks were guilty of being part of a transnational crime organization I'll be happy to see them pay their time, but so far I only know their crime was to be brown and Latino in the wrong place at the wrong time.

What's been discussed here is the need for due process and how this makes anyone vulnerable, because now by default everyone can be guilty without recourse.

Tomorrow someone might say you're part of "antifa" and whatever that word means and boom, your rights are vulnerable and your integrity at risk.

Until their innocent kid with tattoos gets kidnapped to El Salvador or Guantanamo.

funny how the guy requesting a no politic rule * ends up commenting mainly under those

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43122960

Did you read what I wrote there? Just in case you did not I'll quote it with emphasis on the important parts:

"One of the differences between this site and the otherwise comparable Reddit is that politics is supposed to be mostly off-limits here where it can run wild on the former site. Had the election been won by 'the correct candidate' (according to the same vocal minority) I suspect that similar griping from the opposing side would have been slammed down hard as being off-topic so my question is: what is different this time around? Why is politics suddenly a relevant topic here?"

It is the rules for thee but not for (D) which I reacted to there. Either all politics are off-limits or none are. Given that political discussions seem to be the new thing here the latter seems to be the case.

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