Appeals Court Judge Says ‘Nazis Got Better Treatment Under Alien Enemies Act’ than Venezuelans Who Are Being Deported

MILLETT: “— not wrong about anything. I just said factually.”

ENSIGN: “Your honor, I think it’s incorrect that they couldn’t have gone into court as the five individual plaintiffs.”

MILLETT: “No, but the point here was that there were planeloads of people. I mean, it was also — it’s a class action. There were planeloads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people. Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemy Act than has happened here, where the proclamation required the promulgation of regulations. And they had hearing boards before people were removed. And yet, here there’s no — there’s nothing in there about hearing boards. There’s no regulations. And nothing was adopted by the agency officials that were administering this. The people weren’t given notice. They weren’t told where they were going. They were given — those people on those planes on that Saturday had no opportunity to file a habeas or any type of action to challenge the removal under the AEA, and let — you’ve agreed that two of those airplanes, people were removed under the AEA. Is that — what’s factually wrong about what I said?”

ENSIGN: “Well, your Honor, we certainly dispute the Nazi analogy. But more importantly, the fact is that individual plaintiffs were able to file habeas in time in order to secure relief. And what this —“

MILLETT: “Wait, what [inaudible] plaintiffs were?”

ENSIGN: “The five individual plaintiffs that —“

MILLETT: “That’s not my question. My question is there were a lot more people. They wanted to bring a class action. They had to have some named plaintiffs. So, five people filing habeas doesn’t help everybody else on two airplaneloads. Correct? And my question to you is, and you said those five didn’t get put on the airplanes. So, as to the two airplanes that I think you just agreed involved removals solely on AEA grounds, on Saturday, the very short time of the proclamations publication, had no opportunity to have filed for habeas or even notice as to the grounds on which they were being removed. Am I wrong about that?”

ENSIGN: “I think so, your Honor. The fact that five individual plaintiffs did file habeas and did get relief in the case that they —“

MILLETT: “I don’t think you’re answering my question.”