Press Releases

Washington, D.C. (March 27, 2025)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Trump Administration officials demanding urgent answers regarding the Administration’s outrageous abuse of a rarely-used 1798 wartime law to remove non-citizens to a mega-prison in El Salvador without any Due Process.

“I write to demand answers about the Administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to forcibly remove non-citizens from the interior of the United States to a dangerous prison in El Salvador. The idea that the President of the United States can merely declare that the US is being invaded—not by a foreign country, but by a criminal gang—and then ship people off to yet another country to hand them over to a foreign dictator is shocking. Moreover, it is terrifying to think that these people being held indefinitely in an authoritarian mega-prison were sent there without any opportunity in America to appear before a judge, hear the evidence against them, establish that theirs is a case of mistaken identity, or challenge the substantive claims against them,” wrote Ranking Member Raskin in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

On March 14, President Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of The United States by Tren De Aragua.” This activation of the AEA is only the fourth invocation of the Act in our country’s history, and the first time this authority has been used when the United States was not at war. It was last used to jail Japanese-Americans during World War II.

On this shaky legal authority, on March 15, the government flew several planes of non-citizens to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, including 137 individuals forcibly removed under the administration’s claimed authority under the AEA. 

After Chief Judge James Boasberg of the District Court of the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order preventing the government from removing individuals under the AEA and ordered planes in the air to be turned around, the government failed to comply.

While alleging that the removed individuals are all members of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang, the Administration has failed to provide any real evidence to support that claim. By the Administration’s own admission, many of the removed individuals have no criminal record at all. Families and attorneys of several deported men have since spoken out to rebut the government’s claims of gang membership. Under our immigration laws, these non-citizens should have had the right to present this evidence in immigration court, but the Administration denied them of that right by summarily removing them without Due Process.

“If the government can remove someone from this country without trial, if it can declare someone a terrorist or gang member without having to show proof, and then send them to a prison run by a foreign dictator without the semblance of Due Process, then we are in dangerous territory. This regime of fear does not just affect non-citizens, it affects us all. With no apparent requirement for proof of criminality, gang affiliation, or legal status preventing ICE from deporting people under the AEA, there is nothing protecting innocent people, including US citizens, from getting swept up in these removals, should they be allowed to continue,” concluded Ranking Member Raskin.

Click here to read the letter.