Appeals court dodges major ruling on Trump’s contentious use of obscure deportation law

A U.S. appeals court dodged a decision Thursday on President Donald Trump’s contentious use of an obscure law called the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.

The judges dismissed the case because the Trump administration has now removed all three plaintiffs from the U.S. using alternative legal authorities.

The ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals leaves the underlying legal question unresolved.

Last year, the Supreme Court blocked the government from immediately removing the alleged Tren de Aragua gang members without offering them any opportunity to challenge the move.

Once the case returned to the appeals court in September, a three-judge panel ruled against Trump , but the full 17-member court, considered the most conservative in the country, agreed to rehear the case in January at the administration’s request.

“This development is unobjectionable,” Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote Thursday of the deportations that render the case moot. “The Supreme Court expressly said that the government could remove the named petitioners and putative class under other laws. And petitioners point out no infirmities in their removal.”

In reaching its decision, the court refused a request by lawyers for the plaintiffs to substitute new plaintiffs for the men who were deported.

Thursday’s ruling underlines how the administration’s effort to invoke the Alien Enemies Act has largely fizzled. It also most likely delays a definitive Supreme Court ruling on the issue.

Lawrence Hurley Lawrence Hurley is a senior Supreme Court reporter for NBC News.