Judge says migrants sent to El Salvador prison must get a chance to
challenge their removals
[June 05, 2025]
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and LINDSAY WHITEHURST
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the Trump
administration must give more than 100 migrants sent to a notorious
prison in El Salvador a chance to challenge their deportations.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg said that people who were
sent to the prison in March under an 18th-century wartime law haven’t
been able to formally contest the removals or allegations that they are
members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. He ordered the
administration to work toward giving them a way to file those
challenges.
The judge wrote that “significant evidence” has surfaced indicating that
many of the migrants imprisoned in El Salvador are not connected to the
gang “and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous,
accusations.”
Boasberg gave the administration one week to come up with a manner in
which the "at least 137" people can make those claims, even while
they're formally in the custody of El Salvador. It's the latest
milestone in the monthslong legal saga over the fate of deportees
imprisoned at El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center.
After Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in March and prepared
to fly planeloads of accused gang members to El Salvador and out of the
jurisdiction of U.S. courts, Boasberg ordered them to turn the planes
around. This demand was ignored. Boasberg has found probable cause that
the administration committed contempt of court after the flight landed.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele posted a taunting message on social
media — reposted by some of Trump's top aides — that read “Oopsie, too
late.”
The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that anyone targeted under the AEA
has the right to appeal to a judge to contest their designation as an
enemy of the state. Boasberg, in his latest, ruling wrote that he was
simply applying that principle to those who'd been removed.
Boasberg said the administration “plainly deprived” the immigrants of a
chance to challenge their removals before they were put on flights.
Therefore, he says the government must handle the migrants cases now as
if they “would have been if the Government had not provided
constitutionally inadequate process.”
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
The administration and its supporters have targeted Boasberg for his
initial order halting deportations and his contempt inquiry, part of
their growing battle with the judiciary as it puts the brakes on Trump's
efforts to unilaterally remake government. The fight has been
particularly harsh in the realm of immigration, where Trump has
repeatedly said it'd be impossible to protect the country from dangerous
immigrants if each one has his or her day in court.
“We cannot give everyone a trial!” the president posted on his social
media site, Truth Social, after the Supreme Court intervened a second
time in the AEA saga, halting a possible effort to evade its initial
ruling by temporarily freezing deportations from northern Texas.
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Boasberg wrote that he accepted the administration's declaration,
filed under seal, providing details of the government's deal with El
Salvador to house deportees and how that means the Venezuelans are
technically under the legal control of El Salvador and not the
United States. He added, while noting there is a criminal penalty
for providing false testimony, that believing those representations
was “rendered more difficult given the Government’s troubling
conduct throughout this case.”
He also noted parallels with another case where the Trump
administration admitted it mistakenly deported a Maryland man to El
Salvador and has been ordered by a judge, appellate judges and the
U.S. Supreme Court to “facilitate” his return.
That man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, remains in El Salvador more than two
months later.
ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt welcomed Boasberg’s ruling.
“This is a significant step forward to getting these men the chance
to show that they should not ever have been removed under a wartime
authority,” Gelernt told reporters in San Diego after a hearing in a
separate, unrelated case.
In that case, a federal judge Wednesday found the Trump
administration violated a settlement to provide legal advice to
thousands of families that were separated at the border. U.S.
District Judge Dana Sabraw said he would likely decide on concrete
steps by early next week.
In the AEA case, Boasberg's order is only the latest of a blizzard
of legal rulings.
Several judges have temporarily halted deportations under the act in
parts of Texas, New York, California, Pennsylvania and elsewhere,
finding the administration's 24 hour window that it gave detainees
to challenge their designation under the act did not meet the
Supreme Court's requirement of providing a “reasonable” chance to
seek relief. Deportations of people in the country illegally can
continue in those areas under laws other than the AEA,
Some of the judges in those cases have also found that Trump cannot
use the act to target a criminal gang rather than a state, noting
that the act has only been invoked three prior times in history —
during the War of 1812 and during World Wars I and II.
The Supreme Court will likely eventually decide those issues. The
Trump administration contends that the gang is acting as a shadow
arm of Venezuela's government.
_______
Riccardi reported from Denver. Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington,
D.C., and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.
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