En banc Fifth Circuit dismisses the Alien Enemies Act case as moot, leaving the invocation question undecided

The full Fifth Circuit had the biggest open question about this administration's removal power in front of it, and on August 13, 2026 it declined to answer. Sitting en banc, the court dismissed W.M.M. v. Trump as moot rather than deciding whether President Trump lawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. [1]

The reason was procedural, and it turned on what the government itself had done. By the time the case reached decision, "all three of the named plaintiffs have been deported by the government, under statutes separate from the AEA." [1] With the named plaintiffs already removed under other authority, the specific controversy over their AEA-based removal no longer presented a live dispute the court could resolve. That is what mootness means in practice: the remedy the plaintiffs sought had been overtaken by events.

The consequence is that the marquee legal question went unresolved. As the account of the ruling puts it, the dismissal "leaves the key issue of Trump's invocation of the AEA unresolved." [1] The Alien Enemies Act lets the president remove nationals of a hostile nation during a declared war or an invasion, and the fight has been over whether the current invocation fits a statute written for the former. The en banc court did not rule on that fit.

Two judges wrote to say the court should have. Judge James Ho concurred while pressing for a merits ruling, arguing that courts owe a presidential invasion finding the same deference they give Congress on war: "there's no basis for requiring courts to defer to a Congressional declaration of war, but not a Presidential proclamation of invasion." [1] Judge Andrew Oldham would have preferred a ruling on the merits, one that gives the president virtually total deference. [1] Their separate writing signals that at least part of the bench wants to reach the issue when a live case returns.

One caution about what the record here does and does not establish. The available account of the decision does not state the en banc vote breakdown or name the author of the majority opinion, so this piece does not assert either. [1] What is settled is the disposition: dismissed as moot, the AEA question left for another case, after the government removed the plaintiffs by another route.