President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II, granting himself broad authority under a wartime law to deport people allegedly associated with a Venezuelan gang, sparking a legal battle and prompting concern from Catholic immigration advocates.

Anna Gallagher, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, also known as CLINIC, said in a March 17 statement the group "is deeply alarmed by the misuse of this obscure law to strip immigrants suspected of gang activity of due process."

The legislation was first enacted in 1798 amid fears immigrants -- particularly Irish Catholics -- would side with France in a potential conflict with the U.S., a majority Protestant nation. It gave the president authority to imprison and deport non-citizens during conflict bypassing typical hearings.

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The legislation has been invoked just three times since: during the War of 1812, World War I, and most recently World War II, when it was used in the infamous mass internment of people of German, Italian and especially Japanese heritage. 

Gallagher pointed out that the law has historically "led to serious rights abuses," pointing to the Japanese American experience during World War II. Two-thirds of the 120,000 people of Japanese descent rounded up into camps by the U.S. government under the law were native-born U.S. citizens, among them Los Angeles-born and future Star Trek actor George Takei, whose family emerged from internment financially ruined.

In a March 16 statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump used "his core powers as President and Commander-in-Chief to defend the American People from an urgent threat."

Leavitt called the Venezuelan gang, Tren De Aragua, "one of the most violent and ruthless terrorist gangs on planet earth."

"TDA is a direct threat to the national security of the United States," she argued, describing the transnational gang as a "foreign terrorist organization." 

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The Trump administration used the president's invocation of the 1798 law to deport a group of noncitizens it alleged were members of Tren de Aragua. But some of those individuals sued to prevent their imminent deportations to El Salvador for confinement in the country's brutal mega-prison known as CECOT, or the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism.

Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., ordered the Trump administration March 15 to redirect two flights carrying the alleged gang members back to the U.S. while they were midair. 

However, the Trump administration did not reroute the planes, prompting what could be a significant legal battle. Axios reported White House officials argued that because the flights were over international waters at the time, the ruling did not apply.

Leavitt in a statement disputed that the administration "did not 'refuse to comply' with a court order," arguing the order, "which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory."

CLINIC's Gallagher, however, pointed out that immigrants accused of cooperation with Tren de Aragua need to have their due process rights respected in order to uphold the fair and correct application of law.

"We all want safe communities, but this is an unjust and unnecessary abuse of power," she said. 

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Gallagher also quoted Pope Francis' recent letter to the U.S. bishops regarding the mass deportation efforts underway the pope described as a "major crisis." She referenced the pope's statement that the development of an "orderly and legal migration" policy "cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others. What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly."

"The United States is not at war, and this policy will undoubtedly harm innocent people by denying them basic legal rights," Gallagher said. "As Catholics, we must raise our voices to protect legal rights which uphold the dignity of all people."