WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court panel has ruled that President Donald Trump cannot use an 18th-century wartime law to speed the deportations of people his administration accuses of being in a Venezuelan gang. The decision blocking an administration priority is destined for a showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Two judges on a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in the ruling Tuesday, agreed with immigrant rights lawyers and lower court judges who argued the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 was not intended to be used against gangs such as Tren de Aragua, which the Republican president had targeted in March.

Lee Gelernt, who argued the case for the ACLU, said the administration’s use of "a wartime statute during peacetime to regulate immigration was rightly shut

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