FIRST ON FOX: A group of Republican state attorneys general is filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Tuesday afternoon, urging the circuit court to reverse a judge’s order blocking Trump from deporting alleged Tren de Aragua gang members, with one AG saying “the judges are basically supporting foreign terrorist organizations over the public safety of the American citizen.”
The supporting court documents, led by South Carolina and Virginia Attorneys General Alan Wilson and Jason Miyares, respectively, are concerned that the judge’s order – issued by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg – will contribute to crimes committed by violent illegal immigrants in their states.
“When a judge unilaterally steps in and does a temporary restraining order on a nationwide injunction, basically that prohibits the president from performing the one function that the states really can’t do themselves, that undermines our ability to better protect our citizens,” Wilson told Fox News Digital.
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“In this particular case, the judges are coloring way outside the law lines of their authority,” Wilson said in an interview Tuesday. “They are inhibiting the ability of federal law enforcement to support the initiatives of state law enforcement.”
“The judges are basically supporting foreign terrorist organizations over the public safety of the American citizen,” Wilson added.
Miyares added that Trump acted “fully within his constitutional and statutory authority” when he did not ground airplanes deporting alleged migrant gang members back to El Salvador as requested by US Judge James E. Boasberg. Trump’s Department of Justice cited the Alien Enemies Act – which gives him the ability to deport any illegal immigrant without a court prcoess – and filed an emergency petition in the D.C. appellate court urging the court to “halt this massive, unauthorized imposition” on the president’s “authority to remove people that Defendants had determined to be members of TdA.”
“TdA is a violent transnational criminal organization responsible for heinous crimes across the United States,” Miyares said. “The law is clear, and so is our position.”
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Tren de Aragua, a notorious Venezuelan gang, has been declared a foreign terrorist organization. (Edward Romero/Getty Images)
In the supporting brief of Trump’s appeal, Wilson said there’s an incident in Charleston where several Tren de Aragua gang members were arrested. Last August, during a visit to the southern border in El Paso, Texas, Wilson said he met with DEA agents, Texas public safety officers, and Border Patrol, who showed a heat map of the country. At that time, there were no known Tren de Aragua members in South Carolina. However, as Wilson points out in the brief, by early February, several gang members were arrested in the state. “Just six or seven months ago, they weren’t here, but now they are,” Wilson said.
A prison guard transfers deportees from the U.S. to the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on Sunday. (El Salvador presidential press office via AP)
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“Trump did a great job, and this administration did a great job of plugging the hole in the boat when they shut down the border, but all the water is still in the boat, and we’re trying to bail it out, and the judges are trying to prevent us from doing that,” Wilson said.
The Trump administration has designated Tren De Aragua a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Republican attorneys general who signed the amicus brief represent the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Utah.
