Judge seeks more information from Trump administration about prison deal
with El Salvador
[May 08, 2025]
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and NICHOLAS RICCARDI
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday said he'll order the
Trump administration to provide more information about the terms under
which dozens of Venezuelan immigrants are being held at a notorious
prison in El Salvador, moving a step closer to deciding whether to
require the men to be returned to the United States.
District Court Judge James E. Boasberg said he needed the information to
determine whether the roughly 200 men, deported in March under an 18th
century wartime law, were still effectively in U.S. custody. Boasberg
noted that President Donald Trump had boasted in an interview that he
could get back one man wrongly imprisoned in El Salvador in a separate
case by simply asking. The government's lawyer, Abishek Kambli, said
that and other public statements by administration officials about their
relationship with El Salvador lacked “nuance.”
Kambli would not give Boasberg any information about the
administration's deal with El Salvador's President, Nayib Bukele, who
once called himself “the world's coolest dictator” and is holding
immigrants deported from the U.S. at his country's CECOT prison. He
would not even confirm the terms of the deal, which the White House has
said are a $20 million payment to El Salvador.
Boasberg wants the information to establish whether the administration
has what's called “constructive custody” of the immigrants, meaning it
could return them if he ordered it. The ACLU has asked that Boasberg
order the return of the men, who were accused of being members of a gang
Trump claimed was invading the country. Minutes after Trump unveiled his
proclamation in March, claiming wartime powers to short-circuit
immigration proceedings and remove the men without court hearings, the
immigrants were flown to El Salvador.
That happened despite Boasberg's ruling that the planes needed to be
turned around until he could rule on the legality of the move, and he is
separately examining whether to hold the government in contempt for that
action.
After the March flights, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that
no one could be deported under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 without a
chance to challenge it in court. Since then, three separate federal
judges have ruled that Trump's invocation of the act was illegal because
the gang he named is not actually at war with the U.S. It's likely that
those rulings will be appealed all the way back up to the Supreme Court.
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Kambli on Wednesday acknowledged that the men deported on the March
flights did not get the chance to contest their designation under
the Alien Enemies Act, or AEA, as the high court requires. But he
argued that Boasberg cannot conclude the United States still has
custody of the men. If the U.S. asks for them back, Kambli said, “El
Salvador can say ‘No.'"
When it required court hearings for those targeted by the act, the
high court also took much of the AEA case away from Boasberg, ruling
that immigrants have to contest their removal in the places they're
being detained, not Boasberg's Washington, D.C., courtroom. Boasberg,
who'd blocked removals nationwide initially, has held onto some of
the case, including the fate of the men who were first deported.
Trump and some Republican allies have called for impeaching Boasberg,
who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama.
Those calls prompted a rare statement from Supreme Court Chief
Justice John Roberts, who said “impeachment is not an appropriate
response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
Boasberg hinted Wednesday he may ultimately require that the
deported men receive the due process the high court requires, be it
by bringing them back or ordering them moved to another facility,
like Guantanamo Bay, fully under U.S. control.
There was also a hint that Boasberg was aware of the way Trump and
his supporters have spun the legal decisions in the case. He noted
that some in the government have described the initial Supreme Court
ruling as a victory in which the court upheld the legality of
Trump's proclamation.
Noting that there was an open line so the public could listen to the
hearing, Boasberg read from that ruling, which states explicitly
that it does not address the legality of labeling the gang a foreign
invader.
“We agree,” Kambli said. “they did not handle that precise issue.”
Riccardi reported from Denver
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