On Tuesday, April 22, 2025, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to remove people in Colorado, including to the Terrorism Confinement Center, a notorious prison in El Salvador. Below are statements from counsel on the case:
“We are thankful that the Court put a stop to the Trump administration’s unlawful attempt to disappear Colorado residents to a Salvadoran mega-prison,” said Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado Legal Director. “Due process is fundamental to the rule of law in this country, and the government has shown a rampant disregard for this essential civil right. The Trump administration’s desire to evade due process is a threat to all of us. We will continue to fight to permanently stop the government from disappearing people to foreign prisons without due process and in violation of the law. Not one more person should face this nightmare scenario.”
“The court properly recognized that this wartime authority cannot be used during peacetime and that the government is not complying with due process,” said Lee Gelernt, Deputy Director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project.
"This is an important first step in a battle being waged here in Colorado and in other districts across the country to protect people from vanishing to a torture prison in El Salvador, or another similarly treacherous fate,” said Laura Lunn, Director of Advocacy and Litigation at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Center. “This order will hopefully provide some comfort to our clients in the Aurora facility who go to bed wondering whether they will be woken up in the middle of the night and swept away from their lives and their loved ones, potentially forever."
