McALLEN, Texas (AP) — Judges in Texas and New York on Wednesday temporarily barred the U.S. government from deporting Venezuelans jailed in parts of those two states while their lawyers challenge the Trump administration’s use of a rarely invoked law letting presidents imprison noncitizens or expel them from the country in times of war.
The pair of rulings didn't address the legality of President Donald Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang, and they only applied to immigrants in federal custody in the judges’ judicial districts.
The judicial moves were the first to occur after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled the administration can resume deportations under the act, but deportees must be afforded some due process before they are flown away, including reasonable time to argue to a judge that they should not be deported.
Civil rights lawyers in the two states had sued to prevent the government from deporting five men who deny being part of the Tren de Aragua gang.
Similar legal challenges are likely to follow in other places where Venezuelans have been detained. The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the judges in Texas and New York to decide whether the administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act is lawful when the country is not at war.
The Alien Enemies Act has only been used three times in the past, during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, when it was used to justify the mass internment of people of Japanese heritage while the U.S. was at war with Japan.
The United States is not at war with Venezuela, but Trump has argued the U.S. is being invaded by members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
U.S. immigration authorities already have deported more than 100 people and sent them to a notorious prison in El Salvador without letting them challenge their removals in court.
Civil liberties lawyers brought lawsuits on behalf of three men detained in a facility in Texas and two jailed about 45 miles (72 kilometers) northwest of New York City.
Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. signed a temporary restraining order in the morning that applies to people locked up at the El Valle Detention Center in Raymondville, Texas. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein signed a similar order in New York in the early evening that applies across the Southern District of New York, which includes the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, and six counties north of the city.
In Texas, the three plaintiffs include a man who is HIV positive and fears losing access to medical care if deported.
The men were identified as gang members by physical attributes using the “Alien Enemy Validation Guide,” in which an ICE agent tallies points by relying on tattoos, hand gestures, symbols, logos, graffiti, and manner of dress, according to the ACLU. Experts who study the gang have told the ACLU the method is not reliable.
The lawsuits sought class action status to apply to others who are detained and face similar deportation.
In a hearing in the New York case, Deputy Attorney General Drew Ensign opposed a temporary order blocking deportations. Ensign told Hellerstein that there were “only a handful” of Venezuelans, probably less than 10, detained in New York's Southern District.
When Hellerstein said 10 individuals would be enough to make up a class, Ensign said: “We disagree.”
ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said after the hearing that the civil rights group was still hoping to get a nationwide injunction so lawyers don’t have to file cases challenging the law in 96 different federal judicial districts.
The Trump administration plans to expand its use for members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13, Todd Lyons, acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, told reporters Tuesday during Border Security Expo, a trade show in Phoenix.
Neumeister reported from New York.
An earlier version of this report incorrectly stated the New York hearing was happening Tuesday morning instead of Wednesday morning.
FILE - Venezuelan migrants board a plane heading back to their home country from Harlingen, Texas, on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Valerie Gonzalez, File)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Six people who all knew each other were inside a vehicle when one, a man with an alleged gang connection, shot each of them in the head before fleeing, according to newly unsealed criminal charges in this week's mass shooting in Minneapolis.
Three victims died at the scene early Tuesday. Another succumbed to his wounds Thursday. One remains hospitalized after being shot in the face but was able to identify the shooter to police, according to the criminal complaint.
And investigators believe a fifth person was killed hours later in retaliation. A suspect in the first shooting was arrested Thursday and has been charged with murder.
Police say the victims were all Native Americans and the shooting was gang-related. The rash of violence has shaken one of the country’s largest urban Indigenous communities.
The first shooting happened on Tuesday just before midnight in a vehicle parked in the diverse residential and commercial neighborhood of Phillips in south Minneapolis. The county medical examiner's office on Friday said the three who died at the scene were Evan Ramon Denny, 27 of St. Paul; Joseph Douglas Goodwin, 17, of Minneapolis; and Merelle Joan White, 20, of Red Lake. Two had been shot multiple times.
A 20-year-old woman was shot in the face and hospitalized in critical condition, the complaint said. She said the shooter was sitting in the back seat when he opened fire on her and everyone else in the vehicle before fleeing on foot.
A 28-year-old man was hospitalized in grave condition but died shortly after the suspect was arrested on Thursday, police said. That victim's name was still being withheld Friday.
About 13 hours later and a few blocks away, a man was killed near an apartment building that happens to house the Minneapolis office of the Red Lake Nation, one of the state's largest tribes. The medical examiner identified him Friday as Tiago Antonio Gilbert, 34, of Minneapolis. He died of multiple gunshot wounds.
The Minneapolis police chief said Thursday it was “entirely probable” this second shooting was revenge for the first. But a police spokesman, Sgt. Garrett Parten, said investigators were still working to determine if there was a link.
Police have released few other details about that homicide.
A makeshift memorial had sprung up by Friday at the site of the first shooting. Red, silver and black balloons were tied to a tree where a plush eagle toy was also attached. At the base were candles, fresh flowers and a bottle of tequila.
The state’s 11 sovereign tribal nations issued a joint statement Thursday, mourning the deaths and urging anyone with information to contact city law enforcement or their own tribal police.
“As native peoples, we have always known grief,” the statement said. “But we have also always experienced the strength that comes afterward. We are here because our ancestors cared for one another. That is how you are even here — because someone before you chose love, protection, and community over despair.”
The complaint against James Duane Ortley, 34, of Minneapolis, alleges that he and members of his family are associated with a gang known as the Native Mob, which operates in the city’s south and other parts of Minnesota.
The gang was the subject of a multiyear federal investigation over a decade ago that resulted in the convictions of 28 people. Its alleged leader at the time was sentenced in 2014 to 43 years in prison.
The U.S. Marshals Service said its local fugitive task force and an FBI SWAT team arrested Ortley on Thursday afternoon. He was charged a day earlier with second-degree murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Ortley has a felony assault conviction on his record from 2021, which the complaint said prohibits him from possessing guns or ammunition. Court records show he completed his probation in 2023. When police interviewed him in 2023 in a separate homicide investigation, the complaint said, he acknowledged that his street name was “Baby James.”
Ortley remained jailed Friday, and court records didn’t list an attorney who could comment on his behalf. His first court appearance is scheduled for Monday. The chief public defender for Hennepin County, Michael Berger, said his office probably won’t learn if it’s representing Ortley until Monday. Messages were left with several potential relatives of Ortley's.
The victim who survived told police the shooter went by the street names “Baby J,” “Little J” and “Little James,” and was a friend of one of the victims, according to the complaint filed in Hennepin County District Court.
Relatives of one victim told police that the victims were all together at a family friend's residence in Minneapolis but left around 9:30 p.m. with plans to pick up “Baby J,” who was known to be a “close family friend” of the victims. The family member identified “Baby J” as the defendant.
Other law enforcement sources told investigators that Ortley was “an associate” of more than one victim, the complaint said.
A surveillance video was consistent with the survivor's account, the complaint said. It shows one person matching Ortley's description exiting the vehicle and fleeing before police arrived.
The complaint gave no details on what might have prompted the shootings.
“This is a bittersweet day,” Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in a statement Friday. “While this arrest represents meaningful progress toward justice, that progress is overshadowed by the heartbreaking loss of another life. Our thoughts remain with the victims’ families, their loved ones, and a community that continues to grieve.”
This story had been updated to correct in the headline that he has been charged in four homicides, instead of charged with four homicides.
Associated Press reporters Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed.
Items are placed as a memorial at the site of a late Tuesday fatal shooting, on Friday, May 2, 2025 in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)
Items are placed as a memorial at the site of a late Tuesday fatal shooting, on Friday, May 2, 2025 in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)
A police officer works on the scene as a bystander is shook up by the homicide in front of 2107 Cedar Ave S in Minneapolis, Minn., on Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Star Tribune via AP)
Police work on the scene as a bystander is shook up by the homicide in front of 2107 Cedar Ave S in Minneapolis, Minn., on Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Star Tribune via AP)
