LAWLESS NATION
'Destroys privacy': Experts panic as Trump eyes letting Feds raid homes without warrants
Erik De La Garza
March 20, 2025
RAW STORY
An arcane wartime law President Donald Trump recently invoked to carry out the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members could open the door for federal agents to enter residences without a warrant, according to the New York Times.
Trump last week signed a proclamation ushering in the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as he took aim at Venezuelan citizens the administration branded as belonging to the notorious Tres de Aragua gang.
But a reading of the language by senior Justice Department lawyers, together with the historical context of the law, has led the Trump administration to believe “that the government does not need a warrant to enter a home or premises to search for people believed to be members of that gang,” the Times reported Thursday.
“It remains unclear whether the administration will apply the law in this way, but experts say such an interpretation would infringe on basic civil liberties and raise the potential for misuse,” according to the Times report. “Warrantless entries have some precedent in America’s wartime history, but invoking the law in peacetime to pursue undocumented immigrants in such a way would be an entirely new application.”
The legal view sent experts into panic mode over concerns that constitutional freedoms, including the the Fourth Amendment’s requirement for a court order to search someone’s home, could be at risk.
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“The Fourth Amendment applies to everyone in the U.S., not just individuals with legal status,” Christopher A. Wellborn, the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, told the Times. "Ripping that right away from Americans would be an “abuse of power that destroys our privacy, making Americans feel unsafe and vulnerable in the places where our children play and our loved ones sleep."
The law has been used on just three other occasions, all in times of “major wars,” and it remains to be seen “how the administration has deemed someone a member of Tren de Aragua,” the report stated.
But the ramifications are clear.
“Legal scholars have long criticized the law as prone to abuse,” the Times reported Thursday. “During World War II, in one of the darker chapters in the nation’s history, the law paved the way for citizens of Germany, Italy or Japan to be searched and detained.”
Vanderbilt University law professor Christopher Slobogin told the Times that the old law invoked by Trump “undermines fundamental protections that are recognized in the Fourth Amendment, and in the due process clause.”
Agence France-Presse
March 20, 2025
US President Donald Trump demanded Thursday that courts stop blocking his agenda, edging closer to a constitutional showdown after a judge suggested the administration ignored an order to block summary deportations.
A federal judge, in a strongly worded order, gave the Justice Department until Tuesday to explain why it went ahead with flights to prison in El Salvador of Venezuelan migrants, some of whom say they committed no crime and were targeted only for their tattoos.
Trump, in a scathing attack on the judiciary that would have been unthinkable coming from most presidents, demanded that the Supreme Court intervene.
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"It is our goal to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and such a high aspiration can never be done if Radical and Highly Partisan Judges are allowed to stand in the way of JUSTICE," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post aimed at Chief Justice John Roberts.
"STOP NATIONWIDE INJUNCTIONS NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE," Trump wrote in all capital letters.
"If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY, our Country is in very serious trouble!"
Roberts, who was nominated by Republican George W. Bush, a day earlier issued a rare rebuke by the country's top justice to remarks of the president after Trump called for the impeachment of the judge who ruled on the immigration case.
"For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision," Roberts said in a brief statement.
"The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."
James Boasberg, the chief judge of the US District Court in Washington, on Saturday had issued an emergency order against the deportation of Venezuelans as they sought legal recourse.
He said that two flights in the air needed to turn around. El Salvador's President Nayyib Bukele, who has offered to take in prisoners on the cheap in Latin America's largest prison, responded on social media: "Oopsie... Too late."
In a new order on Thursday, Boasberg said that an acting field office director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement explained that the Trump administration was considering justifying its actions by saying the issue was a matter of "state secrets."
"This is woefully insufficient," Boasberg wrote, saying that "the Government again evaded its obligations."
He said that a regional official in charge of immigration enforcement was not in a position to attest to cabinet-level arguments against a federal court.
He gave the Trump administration until Tuesday to explain why it did not violate his restraining order.
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