A District of Columbia circuit court judge accused the Trump administration Monday of treating alleged members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang worse than those foreign nationals accused of being Nazis in the U.S. during World War II.
Judge Patricia Millett — appointed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama — grilled Trump Department of Justice attorney Drew Ensign over the administration’s decision to deport 260 purported members of Tren de Aragua under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
They were flown to a prison in El Salvador earlier this month.
“The Alien Enemies Act allows noncitizens to be deported without the opportunity to go before an immigration or federal court judge,” the Associated Press reported.
Trump issued a proclamation on March 14 naming Tren de Aragua an invading force and therefore subject to the provisions of the act.
“Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act,” Millet asserted, according to ABC News.
She “noted that alleged Nazis were given hearing boards and were subject to established regulations, while the alleged members of Tren De Aragua were given no such rights,” the outlet added.
“There’s no regulations, and nothing was adopted by the agency officials that were administering this. These people weren’t given notice. They weren’t told where they were going. They were given — those people on those planes on that Saturday [March 15] and had no opportunity to file habeas or any type of action to challenge the removal under the AEA,” Millet continued. “What’s factually wrong about what I said?”
U.S. Appeals Court for the DC Circuit Judge Patricia Millett: “There were planeloads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people. Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here…” pic.twitter.com/Wqoj35GVmt
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 24, 2025
Do you think Trump is within his right to deport criminals?
Ensign responded, “Well, Your Honor, we certainly dispute the Nazi analogy,” pointing out that some of the men were able to file habeas petitions.
A habeas corpus petition allows those who have been detained to challenge the legality of their imprisonment before a court.
A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court, including Millet, was hearing an appeal brought by the Trump administration seeking to overturn a temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg last week. He blocked the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport the alleged Tren de Aragua members.
In fact, Boasberg had ordered planes carrying the alleged gang members to be turned around.
The Trump administration responded by saying the judge’s order was not binding until it was in written form, and by then all three planes in question had left the U.S. airspace.
In addition to Millet, the three-judge circuit panel reviewing the matter included Judge Justin Walker, whom Trump appointed in 2020, and Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, appointed to the bench by Republican President George H.W. Bush in 1990, according to the AP.
The outlet said that Walker appeared more open to the administration’s argument, based on his questioning, while Henderson remained quiet during the roughly two-hour hearing.
The New York Post reported, “Five migrants flown to El Salvador have sued the Trump administration over the deportation effort and are being repped by the American Civil Liberties Union, which defended Boasberg’s temporary restraining order during the Monday appeals hearing.”
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
