A ruling handed down by the U.S. District Appeals Court in Washington, D.C., April 14 dealt a blow to immigrants’ constitutional right to due process and a hearing before being deported.
It also threw out an ongoing contempt case pursued by the chief federal judge in Washington, D.C., James Boasberg, against the Donald Trump White House for the way it ignored his court orders not to deport 238 immigrants, overwhelmingly from Venezuela, to the notorious CECOT maximum security prison in El Salvador.
In a 2-1 vote, the panel ordered Boasberg to end his efforts to investigate whether Trump administration officials illegally ignored his court orders. “The district court proposes to probe high-level Executive Branch deliberations about matters of national security and diplomacy,” Circuit Judge Neomi Rao wrote in the panel’s ruling.
Trump had relied on the rarely used 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which gives the president broad power to detain and deport citizens of other nations who are either at war with the U.S. or have launched an invasion of U.S. territory. It was passed by the John Adams administration to attack the free speech rights of opponents of his pro-British foreign policy.
The targets of the Trump administration were Venezuelan immigrants, who he claimed were dangerous members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang — without giving the right to a hearing or presenting evidence against them. In a proclamation, the president said Venezuela was “a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States.”
On March 15-16, 2025, the Justice Department forced these incarcerated Venezuelans onto three planes to deport them to El Salvador. American Civil Liberties Union lawyers representing five of them were able to get a case filed with Judge Boasberg challenging their deportations. He ordered a stop to any moves to deport them and rapidly set up a hearing, where he was incredulous at the arguments of the government lawyers and their refusal to answer questions. They claimed they couldn’t do so for fear of passing on government national security secrets.
The ACLU attorneys reported that they had received word their clients and other Venezuelans were being loaded onto the planes.
Boasberg asked Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign if deportations were imminent. Ensign claimed he didn’t know. Boasberg gave him 40 minutes to find out. But the planes carrying the immigrants began to take off.
Boasberg then reconvened the hearing and told Ensign to “inform your clients” 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.” He said this order is in effect for the next 14 days.
Within the hour, his written order was released. By then all three planes are in the air, full of Venezuelans and one Salvadoran. U.S. agents had also thrown Kilmar Ábrego García aboard in direct violation of a court order.
They were all imprisoned at the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador.
Boasberg initiated an investigation into who had made the decision to violate his orders, and was considering filing an order of contempt.
When the Justice Department moved to have his investigation annulled, it was successful, but not on the merits of the case. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the ACLU and its clients, who had been in immigration detention in Texas, not Washington, D.C., had not brought their case to the right court, so it was thrown out.
The justices, however, unanimously said the immigrants involved had the right to due process and a hearing.
Trump railed against Boasberg, saying, “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!”
This led Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to make an unusual public comment rejecting calls to impeach judges.
A few months later, Boasberg decided to restart his investigation into whether the administration had willfully violated his court order to stop the flights. This is the case the D.C. Court of Appeals decided. Speaking for the two-judge majority, Appeals Court Judge Rao wrote that Boasberg had encroached on “the autonomy of the Executive Branch” and was a “clear abuse of discretion.”
In her dissent, Appeals Court Judge J. Michelle Childs said that the ruling stymied Boasberg “in a way that will affect not only these contempt proceedings but will also echo in future proceedings against all litigants.”
An appeal asking for a rehearing by the full Circuit Court of Appeals is expected.