Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a Venezuelan couple Friday after a federal judge in Texas ruled that the Trump administration’s handling of their case did not have a “lawful basis.”
U.S. District Judge David Briones of El Paso wrote in a searing ruling that ICE had not demonstrated convincing evidence that Julio Cesar Sanchez Puentes and Luddis Norelia Sanchez Garcia, who were detained for nine days, are members of the Tren de Aragua gang and are therefore “alien enemies.”
This is the first case in which a judge ruled on the Trump administration’s allegations that someone is a gang member subject to removal under the Alien Enemies Act. President Donald Trump has invoked the infamous 1798 wartime law and claimed he can use it to deport Venezuelan migrants whom his administration claims are members of a gang that he has declared to be a terrorist organization. This is the basis his administration has used to ship hundreds of Venezuelan migrants, without due process, to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.
Briones wrote in his decision that the allegations in Sanchez Puentes and Sanchez Garcia’s case were based on “multiple levels of hearsay, hidden within declarations of declarants who have no personal knowledge about the facts they are attesting to.”
“This court takes clear offense to respondents wasting judicial resources to admit to the court it has no evidence, yet seek to have this court determine petitioner Sanchez Puentes is ‘guilty by association’” by being married to his wife, Briones wrote.
Sanchez Puentes and Sanchez Garcia came to the U.S. with their three children in 2022. At the border wall, they turned themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol agents, according to the nonprofit news outlet El Paso Matters. They are in the country under protected temporary status with work permits and have applied for asylum.
The couple, who live in the Washington, D.C. area, had come to El Paso over a misdemeanor charge over their entry into the country following a warrant issued this year. On April 14, a federal magistrate ruled that they could be free on bail until their court date in June, but they were arrested April 16 at El Paso International Airport.
Briones wrote, “It is clear as day that respondents have not demonstrated to this court by a ‘preponderance of evidence,’ let alone the required ‘clear, unequivocal, and convincing’ evidence that petitioner Sanchez Puentes is a member of TdA, nor that he is an ‘alien enemy.’”
The judge ruled that Sanchez Puentes cannot be designated an “alien enemy,” and “his continued confinement on these grounds is therefore unlawful. Petitioner Sanchez Puentes must be released.”
Writing about the claims against Sanchez Garcia, Briones pointed out that Trump administration officials “contradict themselves throughout the entire record. Respondents claim petitioner Sanchez Garcia is somehow both ‘a money receiver and lookout’ as well as a ‘senior member of TdA.’”
“Respondents ask this court to accept their claims, going off of nearly nothing, to substantiate their mammoth claims that Petitioner Sanchez Garcia is a ‘senior member,’ or perhaps just a ‘member,’ or maybe at the least an ‘affiliate’ of TdA,” the judge wrote. “The court would not accept this evidence even in a case where only nominal damages were at stake, let alone what is at stake here.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at American Immigration Council, posted on X, “This is the first case testing ICE’s allegations that someone was in Tren de Aragua and thus subject to the Alien Enemies Act — and ICE utterly failed the test!”
This is not the first time this year that the couple was arrested and detained. In March, a federal judge ordered their release as well. Earlier in March, a Magistrate Judge referred to the case as “odd.” The Trump administration subsequently attempted to deport them under the Alien Enemies Act.
“They have gone through four different judges, none of whom thought they should be detained,” the couple’s attorney, Chris Benoit, told El Paso Matters. “They have deep ties to their community in the United States. They have three minor children. They’ve been living peacefully in our country since 2022.”
“The court ruling made clear they should not have been designated alien enemies. The consequences of that are drastic because if they were successful, César would be facing a life sentence in a brutal El Salvadoran prison. We don’t know where Norelia would be, but we believe it would be in fairly similar circumstances,” he added.
The Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport supposed Venezuelan gang members to a prison in El Salvador. A judge issued an order blocking the deportations, but the Trump administration carried them out anyway. The Alien Enemies Act was previously used to justify Japanese internment during World War II.
Briones also issued an injunction that blocked the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport anyone in the Western District of Texas without 21 days notice.
