Trump admin live updates: Judge releases Venezuelan couple accused of being gang members, rips government evidence

In a scathing rebuke of the government’s attempt to deport a Venezuelan couple who is in the country legally, on grounds that they’re TdA members, a federal judge has ordered them to be released Friday.

U.S. District Judge David Briones, a Clinton appointee, also barred the administration from removing anyone under the Alien Enemies Act in the Western District of Texas without giving them 21 days notice.

Julio Cesar Sanchez-Puentes and Luddis Norelia Sanchez-García, fled Venezuela and entered the U.S. in October 2022 and were released on parole, court documents said. Both applied and were granted Temporary Protected Status in 2024, according to court documents.

The couple was arrested and released twice in March, due to charges stemming from their entry into the U.S, according to court documents.

On April 1, their TPS status was withdrawn because of their alleged “association with a Foreign Terrorist Organization,” but they were given 33 days to appeal the decision and should have been protected from detention, their lawyer argued in court.

On April 16, the couple was again arrested this time at the El Paso International Airport after they had attended a hearing about those charges.

Briones accused the government of declaring they were members of the gang “without providing this Court with a single piece of meaningful evidence.”

Declarations from ICE officials claimed that during a previous arrest, Sanchez-Garcia had acknowledged that her ex-husband, who she had separated from 10 years ago, was a member of the gang and was killed by the Venezuelan government because of it.

The couple's attorneys said in a statement that they were released Friday.

"As the Court's ruling made clear, they should not have been designated 'alien enemies.' And the consequences of this designation are drastic," they said in a statement."

"If ICE was successful, Cesar would be facing a life sentence in a brutal El Salvadoran prison. Norelia was facing the same at some other unknown location," they added.

In March, Judge Leonie Brinkema, a Clinton appointee, also slammed the government's evidence against the couple, claiming she’d throw government lawyers out of her chambers if it were a criminal case.

-ABC News' Armando Garcia

In a new post on his social media platform, President Donald Trump criticized Ukraine because the nation has not signed the rare earth deal with the U.S.

"It is at least three weeks late. Hopefully, it will be signed IMMEDIATELY," Trump said in the post.

During a meeting with the Italian prime minister last week, Trump announced that the deal would be signed by the U.S. and Ukraine on Thursday of this week. When ABC News' Rachel Scott pressed him for details, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration is still working out details, but hoped to sign the agreement on April 26.

Trump added that "Work on the overall Peace Deal between Russia and Ukraine is going smoothly."

--ABC News' Michelle Stoddart

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X that he is making a surprise trip to the southern border Friday.

A video he shared on his official account shows him boarding a plane. On his personal account, he wrote that he is going down "to see our troops ON MISSION" and a "brand-new 'NATIONAL DEFENSE AREA.'"

The trip comes as Hegseth faces scrutiny in Washington. Hegseth has used the Signal app on a personal computer in his Pentagon office connected to the internet on an unsecured "dirty line," ABC News has reported. He also shouted a threat to polygraph top-ranking military officers as he accused them of leaking to the media.

A Pentagon spokesman posted online that the report was "complete & total fake news."

Trump signed an executive order that seeks to develop domestic capability for the "exploration, characterization, collection and processing of critical deep seabed minerals."

The order itself contains a lengthy list of mandates for various Cabinet secretaries and departments to help deliver on the aim of the order.

Specifically, it calls on the secretary of the Department of Commerce to expedite the review and issuance of exploration and commercial recovery permits under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act.

The order will also require the secretaries of the departments of Commerce and the Interior to create a report detailing private-sector interest and opportunities for "exploration, mining and monitoring" of seabed mineral on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf and private-sector processing capability within the U.S. and on U.S.-flagged vessels.

The secretary of state and secretary of the interior will also be tasked with creating a map of priority areas of the seabed.

The order also requires the secretary of the interior to come up with a process for reviewing and approving permits and granting licenses within the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. Officials say these licenses will be administered under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.

-ABC News' Hannah Demissie