Fifth Circuit Dismisses Challenge to Trump's Use of Alien Enemies Act, Leaving Deportation Powers Intact
The high-stakes legal battle over the Trump administration’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to execute peacetime mass deportations has ended in a messy procedural dismissal. On Thursday, August 13, 2026, the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dismissed the case W.M.M. v. Trump (formerly A.A.R.P. v. Trump) as moot. The 17-member court chose to sidestep the core constitutional question of whether illegal migration and drug smuggling by foreign gangs constitute an "invasion" or "predatory incursion" under the 18th-century statute, leaving the administration’s sweeping deportation program active and legally unchallenged for the foreseeable future.
The lawsuit arose after President Donald Trump invoked the AEA to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang. While a three-judge Fifth Circuit panel had previously ruled the invocation illegal—concluding that migration does not constitute a military invasion—the full court’s en banc dismissal vacates that decision. Because the administration successfully deported all three named plaintiffs using alternative legal authorities, the en banc majority ruled that the controversy was moot.
In concurring opinions, prominent conservative Judges James Ho and Andrew Oldham signaled that they would have preferred a ruling on the merits that granted the president absolute deference in declaring an "invasion." During oral arguments, this expansive view of executive power led Department of Justice attorneys to admit that under their interpretation, a president could theoretically invoke the AEA to deport British citizens in response to a musical "British Invasion" like that of the Beatles. By dismissing the challenge on procedural grounds, the Fifth Circuit has effectively preserved a powerful and highly controversial tool in the president's executive arsenal without a definitive judicial ruling on its limits.1
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An instance of Unilateral executive overreach over trade and borders increasingly escapes traditional judicial checks. — It demonstrates a federal appellate court using procedural grounds to avoid reviewing and checking an aggressive expansion of executive border enforcement powers. ↩︎