Breaking: 5th Circuit Rules Against Trump Admin on Its Use of AEA to Remove TdA Members

Late Tuesday evening, the 5th Circuit handed down its decision in the case now styled W.M.M. v. Trump (previously styled as A.A.R.P. v. Trump) regarding the Trump administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to remove purported Tren de Aragua (TdA) members from the U.S. To cut to the chase, the court held that the administration improperly invoked the AEA to justify removing the purported TdA members because "we find no invasion or predatory incursion."

This case has had a complicated procedural history that's involved several notable decisions and a foray to the Supreme Court, which resulted in a surprising Easter weekend ruling that sent the case back to the 5th Circuit to determine two things:

(1) all the normal preliminary injunction factors, including likelihood of success on the merits, as to the named [Petitioners’] underlying habeas claims that the AEA does not authorize their removal pursuant to the President’s March 14, 2025, Proclamation, and (2) the issue of what notice is due, as to the putative class’s due process claims against summary removal.

Breaking: Supreme Court Again Blocks Trump Admin From Deporting TdA Members Without 'Proper' Notice

To invoke a cliché, the court pretty well split the baby in its decision, although one could reasonably argue not in equal portions.

It's a 185-page opinion, authored by Judge Leslie Southwick (a Bush 43 appointee), with Judge Irma Ramirez (a Biden appointee) concurring on the AEA issue and dissenting on the notice issue. (While she agrees that the government's revised notice provides adequate information, she disagrees that seven days' notice is sufficient time and asserts that the notice timeframe should be 21 days.) And then Judge Andrew Oldham (a Trump appointee) dissents (emphatically) on the AEA issue but seemingly agrees that the notice provided by the government provides adequate due process while disagreeing with the majority's rationale for finding it so.

The heart of the ruling — and why it's considered a loss for the Trump administration — is the AEA determination. Margot Cleveland has helpfully laid out some of the key portions from the opinion in this thread:

2/ Following are relevant passages explaining court's opinion. pic.twitter.com/jLVcjU47WN
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) September 3, 2025

However, to sum it up, as noted above, the court basically second-guesses President Trump's Proclamation/determination that TdA "is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States." The court grants a preliminary injunction to prevent removal under the AEA and remands the case to the district court for further proceedings, though it does make the point that this ruling is only as to the AEA invocation:

We declare, as did the Supreme Court, that our injunction solely applies to the use of the war-related federal statute and does not impede use of any other statutory authority for removing foreign terrorists.

Oldham's dissent does a thorough job of highlighting the fact that the AEA determination is one rightly reserved for the executive, not the judiciary, and that the rules (and law) appear to apply differently for this president:

For 227 years, every President of every political party has enjoyed the same broad powers to repel threats to our Nation under the Alien Enemies Act (“AEA”). And from the dawn of our Nation until President Trump took office a second time, courts have never second-guessed the President’s invocation of that Act. Not once. The reason is simple: Determining whether the AEA’s preconditions are satisfied—whether there is a declared war, or “any invasion or predatory incursion” being “perpetrated, attempted, or threatened,” 50 U.S.C. § 21—depends upon “matters of political judgment for which judges have neither technical competence nor official responsibility.” Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U.S. 160, 170 (1948).
...
For President Trump, however, the rules are different. Today the majority holds that President Trump is just an ordinary civil litigant. His declaration of a predatory incursion is not conclusive. Far from it. Rather, President Trump must plead sufficient facts—as if he were some run-of-the-mill plaintiff in a breach-of-contract case—to convince a federal judge that he is entitled to relief.
That contravenes over 200 years of legal precedent. And it transmogrifies the least-dangerous branch into robed crusaders who get to playact as multitudinous Commanders in Chief.

This one will likely be met with a petition for rehearing en banc (by the administration) and, undoubtedly, find its way back up at the Supreme Court (regardless of how that shakes out) before all is said and done, but for now, it's a blow to the administration's use of the AEA for removal purposes.

Editor's Note: Radical leftist judges are doing everything they can to hamstring President Trump's agenda to make America great again.

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