Judge questions Trump administration on whether it ignored order to turn
around deportation flights
[March 18, 2025]
By LINDSAY WHITEHURST and REGINA GARCIA CANO
A federal judge on Monday questioned whether the Trump administration
ignored his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El
Salvador, a possible violation of the decision he'd issued minutes
before.
District Judge James E. Boasberg was incredulous over the
administration's contentions that his verbal directions did not count,
that only his written order needed to be followed, that it couldn't
apply to flights that had left the U.S. and that the administration
could not answer his questions about the deportations due to national
security issues.
“That's one heck of a stretch, I think,” Boasberg replied, noting that
the administration knew as the planes were departing that he was about
to decide whether to briefly halt deportations being made under a rarely
used 18th century law invoked by Trump about an hour earlier.
“I’m just asking how you think my equitable powers do not attach to a
plane that has departed the U.S., even if it’s in international
airspace,” Boasberg added at another point.
Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli contended that only
Boasberg’s short written order, issued about 45 minutes after he made
the verbal demand, counted. It did not contain any demands to reverse
planes, and Kambli added that it was too late to redirect two planes
that had left the U.S. by that time.
“These are sensitive, operational tasks of national security,” Kambli
said.
The hearing over what Boasberg called the “possible defiance” of his
court order marked the latest step in a high-stakes legal fight that
began when President Donald Trump invoked the 1798 wartime law to remove
immigrants over the weekend. It was also an escalation in the battle
over whether the Trump administration is flouting court orders that have
blocked some of his aggressive moves in the opening weeks of his second
term.
“There’s been a lot of talk about constitutional crisis, people throw
that word around. I think we’re getting very close to it,” warned Lee
Gelernt of the ACLU, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, during the
Monday hearing. After the hearing, Gelernt said the ACLU would ask
Boasberg to order all improperly deported people returned to the United
States.
Boasberg said he'd record the proceedings and additional demands in
writing. “I will memorialize this in a written order since apparently my
oral orders don’t seem to carry much weight,” Boasberg said.
On Saturday night, Boasberg ordered the administration not to deport
anyone in its custody through the newly-invoked Alien Enemies Act, which
has only been used three times before in U.S. history, all during
congressionally declared wars. Trump issued a proclamation that the law
was newly in effect due to what he claimed was an invasion by the
Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Trump's invocation of the act could allow him to deport any noncitizen
he says is associated with the gang, without offering proof or even
publicly identifying them. The plaintiffs filed their suit on behalf of
several Venezuelans in U.S. custody who feared they'd be falsely accused
of being Tren de Aragua members and improperly removed from the country.
Told there were planes in the air headed to El Salvador, which has
agreed to house deported migrants in a notorious prison, Boasberg said
Saturday evening that he and the government needed to move fast. “You
shall inform your clients of this immediately, and that any plane
containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs
to be returned to the United States,” Boasberg told the government's
lawyer.
According to the filing, two planes that had taken off from Texas'
detention facility when the hearing started more than an hour earlier
were in the air at that point, and they apparently continued to El
Salvador. A third plane apparently took off after the hearing and
Boasberg's written order was formally published at 7:26 p.m. Eastern
time. Kambli said that plane held no one deported under the Alien
Enemies Act.
El Salvador's President, Nayib Bukele, on Sunday morning tweeted, “Oopsie...too
late" above an article referencing Boasberg's order and announced that
more than 200 deportees had arrived in his country. The White House
communications director, Steven Cheung, reposted Bukele's post with an
admiring GIF.
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In this photo provided by El Salvador's presidential press office,
prison guards transfer deportees from the U.S., alleged to be
Venezuelan gang members, to the Terrorism Confinement Center in
Tecoluca, El Salvador, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (El Salvador
presidential press office via AP)
Later Sunday, a widely circulated article in Axios said the
administration decided to “defy” the order and quoted anonymous
officials who said they concluded it didn't extend to planes outside
U.S. airspace. That drew a quick denial from White House press
secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said in a statement “the
administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order.”
The administration argues a federal judge does not have the
authority to tell the president whether he can determine the country
is being invaded under the act, or how to defend it.
After Boasberg scheduled a hearing Monday and said the government
should be prepared to answer questions over its conduct, the Justice
Department objected, saying it could not answer in a public forum
because it involved “sensitive questions of national security,
foreign relations, and coordination with foreign nations.” Boasberg
denied the government's request to cancel the hearing, which led the
Trump administration to ask that the judge be taken off the case.
Kambli stressed that the government believes it is complying with
Boasberg's order. It has said in writing it will not use Trump's
invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to deport anyone if Boasberg's
order is not overturned on appeal, a pledge Kambli made again
verbally in court Monday. "None of this is necessary because we did
comply with the court’s written order,” Kambli said.
Boasberg's temporary restraining order is only in effect for up to
14 days as he oversees the litigation over Trump's unprecedented use
of the act, which is likely to raise new constitutional issues that
can only ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. He had
scheduled a hearing Friday for further arguments, but the two
organizations that filed the initial lawsuit, the ACLU and Democracy
Forward, urged him to force the administration to explain in a
declaration under oath what happened.
As the courtroom drama built, so did international fallout over the
deportations to El Salvador. Venezuela’s government on Monday
characterized the transfer of migrants to El Salvador as
“kidnappings” that it plans to challenge as “crimes against
humanity” before the United Nations and other international
organizations. It also accused Bukele's government of profiting off
the plights of Venezuelan migrants.
“President, I respectfully say to you, are you going to support this
cruelty, this injustice ... of imprisoning noble, hard-working
migrants, good people, without trial, without having committed
crimes in El Salvador, without any kind of sentence issued by a
Salvadoran court?" President Nicolás Maduro said on state
television. “Is this legal? Is it fair? Is it humane?"
Trump's proclamation alleges Tren de Aragua is acting as a “hybrid
criminal state” in partnership with Venezuela.
Families of some Venezuelans in U.S. custody scrambled to find out
if their loved ones had been sent to El Salvador. Multiple
immigration lawyers said they had clients who were not gang members
who were being moved for possible deportation late Friday.
Franco Caraballo was held by immigration authorities during a
routine check-in Feb. 3. His immigration lawyer, Martin Rosenow,
said Caraballo not been accused of a crime. Caraballo's wife
believes he’s been wrongfully accused of belonging to the gang
because of a tattoo he got marking his daughter’s birthday,
He called his wife Friday night in a panic because he was being
handcuffed and put on a plane to an unknown destination in Texas,
from where flights to El Salvador departed.
That was the last the family heard of him and he's disappeared from
the federal immigration detainee locator system. “I’ve never seen
anything like this,” said Rosenow.
__
Cano reported from Caracas, Venezuela. Joshua Goodman in Miami,
Michael Kunzelman in Washington, D.C., and Nicholas Riccardi in
Denver contributed to this report.
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