DENVER — On May 6, 2025, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act in Colorado and certifying a class action for all those detained in Colorado. The federal government is enjoined from disappearing and deporting people from the state, including to an infamous Salvadoran prison, under the law.
“The court has again affirmed what we have always known to be true: deporting and disappearing people without notice or due process is cruel, unconscionable, and unlawful,” said Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado Legal Director. “The federal government cannot misuse the Alien Enemies Act, a two-centuries old law that was passed in 1798 to provide narrow wartime powers and has only been used three times in our country’s history. We will keep fighting to ensure no one else is subjected to this nightmare instigated by the Trump administration. No one, including the federal government, is above the law.”
“The court properly recognized that the president cannot simply ignore the constraints Congress placed on the use of this extraordinary wartime authority,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, lead counsel in the case.
“The federal government has disappeared people,” said Laura Lunn, Director of Advocacy and Litigation at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network. “People who lived in our Colorado community are gone, imprisoned in El Salvador. Instead of watching and waiting, our clients took action on behalf of themselves and countless others similarly situated in the Aurora ICE detention facility. Their bravery, the diligent work of our co-counsel at the ACLU, and the team of steadfast advocates at RMIAN worked together to gain protection against this heartless and lawless government action.”
On April 12, 2025, the ACLU, ACLU of Colorado, and the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network filed an emergency class action lawsuit to halt summary removals under the Alien Enemies Act for people in Colorado. The case was brought by two petitioners, both Venezuelan men in immigration custody at risk of removal under the act.
On April 14, 2025, a federal court issued a temporary restraining order that prohibited the removal from Colorado of noncitizens potentially subject to the Alien Enemies Act. The court held an emergency hearing on April 21, 2025, and the following day, on April 22, 2025, issued an order granting the temporary restraining order and provisionally certifying the class of all noncitizens subject to the March 2025 invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. The restraining order prohibited the government from transferring the petitioners outside of Colorado and required the government to provide petitioners with 21-day notice of any intent to remove individuals pursuant to the Alien enemies Act. On April 23, 2025, the government filed a notice of appeal to the Tenth Circuit and the next day filed an emergency motion for a stay pending appeal. On April 29, 2025, the court denied the government’s motion for a stay.