Immigration advocates and civil rights attorneys in Oregon on Monday, pushed back against the Trump administration’s use of a seldom-invoked, wartime authority to enforce federal immigration law.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime authority that would allow the executive to speed deportations, targeting a Venezuelan gang. The act requires the president to declare the country is at war, giving him the power to speed deportations.

“Obviously the United States is currently not at war with any country, including Venezuela,” the ACLU of Oregon’s Sandy Chung said during a news conference in Portland on Monday.

The national ACLU and others filed an emergency lawsuit to stop the act from being used. Hours after Trump’s announcement, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from implementing the order and ruled that deportation flights already in the air must turn around.

“The lawsuit states the obvious: Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act is unlawful because the U.S. is not at war,” Chung said.

Despite the court order, officials said Sunday that hundreds of immigrants have been transferred to El Salvador, setting the stage for a possible constitutional crisis, one where the executive branch disregards a judicial order from a co-equal branch of government.

Chung and others said they don’t believe any of those who were deported over the weekend were living in Oregon or Washington at the time they were arrested, or were being detained at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Tacoma.

“The danger of this act is that we have not been able to confirm any of this information,” Chung said Monday. She said the concern of invoking the act is “the presidential administration can do what they want without the oversight of the courts.”

Oregon is home to more than 400,000 refugees and immigrants.

“All Oregonians should be alarmed that the Trump administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act because it marks a dangerous escalation in an attack on all of our fundamental freedoms,” Isa Peña, Director of Strategy, Innovation Law Lab, a Portland-based immigration firm. She said that history has shown when the law has been invoked it leads to violations of people’s rights.

“This law has been used to target people because of their race and ethnicity,” Peña said.

The act has only been used three times since its inception, including during the War of 1812 and World War I. Its most recent implementation was during World War II, when the act was used to intern Japanese-American civilians, including thousands from Oregon.

Peña called on Oregonians and state lawmakers to condemn the President’s actions “to ensure that our state’s sanctuary law is upheld and to prevent the use of our state’s resources in illegal and unconstitutional attacks on our immigrant communities.”

Oregon’s sanctuary law dates back to 1987 and prevents police and sheriffs from working with immigration authorities. The law also prohibits the state and local governments from using their resources to enforce federal immigration laws.

There are efforts to roll back parts of that law. State Rep. Alek Skarlatos, R-Canyonville, introduced House Bill 3551, which would allow law enforcement agencies to work with ICE to deport people who are in the country unlawfully.

“We just wanted to set the lowest possible bar of saying let’s deport violent felons, sexual offenders and some Class A Misdemeanors in order to get the most heinous illegal immigrants out of our state,” Skarlatos told OPB on Monday.

“Even if you’re an illegal immigrant you probably don’t want to live next to a murderer just because he’s also an illegal immigrant. They have safety concerns of their own, I’m sure.”

Skarlatos expressed frustration with Oregon Democrats in Salem who he said won’t bring the bill up for a hearing, meaning any chance of it becoming law – or even being an issue that gets debated – are slim.

As for Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act over the weekend, Skarlatos said it was a “pretty sweeping approach” – one he agrees with.

“But I would also say it’s a little ridiculous that he had to go to this step and pull up some esoteric law from 1798 in order to do the thing he should be allowed to do regardless,” Skarlatos said.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/03/17/oregon-immigration-advocates-decry-trumps-use-of-wartime-law-to-speed-deportations/