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... But a redacted copy of the intelligence memo shows that the Washington Post's reporting was accurate.
The April 7 intelligence assessment broadly concluded that Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro's "regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States."
The six-page memo from the National Intelligence Council, "Venezuela: Examining Regime Ties to Tren de Aragua," was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on May 5 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Freedom of the Press Foundation. The foundation provided us a copy of that memo.
The conclusions in the National Intelligence Council memo -- the shared assessment of 18 U.S. intelligence organizations -- undercut the basis for President Donald Trump's March 15 invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport Venezuelan immigrants suspected of affiliation with Tren de Aragua. In that proclamation, the Trump administration argued that TdA is "conducting irregular warfare" in the U.S. and operating "in conjunction" with the Maduro regime, and in support of "the Maduro regime's goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States."
As we have written, the Alien Enemies Act is an 18th century law that says that in times of war or during an "invasion or predatory incursion ... by any foreign nation or government," the president can apprehend, restrain, secure and remove any immigrants who came from the enemy country.
Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act hinges on two assertions: that TdA is "perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States" and that it is acting "at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela." ...
