WASHINGTON — A federal judge said in an order Wednesday that he has found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt over deportation flights it sent to El Salvador.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg found "the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.”
“The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory,” Boasberg wrote.
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Boasberg said the administration could purge his contempt finding by taking custody of the people it deported despite his order and giving them hearings so they can challenge the allegations against them. The "Government would not need to release any of those individuals, nor would it need to transport them back to the homeland" for that process, he wrote.
"In the event that Defendants do not choose to purge their contempt, the Court will proceed to identify the individual(s) responsible for the contumacious conduct by determining whose 'specific act or omission' caused the noncompliance," he wrote, and that person or those people would be prosecuted.
In a statement, White House communications director Steven Cheung said, "We plan to seek immediate appellate relief. The President is 100% committed to ensuring that terrorists and criminal illegal migrants are no longer a threat to Americans and their communities across the country."
Boasberg had ordered any planes that were in the air to be turned around in an emergency hearing March 15, shortly after the White House made it public that President Donald Trump had signed an executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act — a rarely used wartime power — to deport men alleged to be members of a Venezuelan gang.
Lawyers for the plaintiff in the case said that their five clients were not members of the Tren de Aragua gang and that they were being sent to a prison in El Salvador without any due process.
Boasberg then issued his order halting any deportations that were being carried out solely under the authority of the Alien Enemies Act for two weeks while he reviewed the legal issues.
"Despite the Court’s written Order and the oral command spelling out what was required for compliance, the Government did not stop the ongoing removal process," he said, and two planeloads of deportees were taken to a prison in El Salvador that has a history of human rights abuses.
He said the way the deportations were carried out appeared designed to "outrun" the judicial system.
"Hustling class members to an airport before the Proclamation had even been published and in the face of a suit that sought a [temporary restraining order] was bad enough. The decision to launch planes during the afternoon hearing was even worse," Boasberg wrote, saying it suggests an attempt to "deny those aboard the planes the chance to avail themselves of the judicial review that the Government itself later told the Supreme Court is 'obviously' available to them."
"Worse, boasts by Defendants intimated that they had defied the Court’s Order deliberately and gleefully," he wrote, pointing to a social media post from Secretary of State Marco Rubio the day after the deportations. "The Secretary of State, for instance, retweeted a post in which, above a news headline noting this Court’s Order to return the flights to the United States, the President of El Salvador wrote: ‘Oopsie . . . Too late 😂😂.’”
Boasberg also chided the administration for refusing to give him any information about the timing of the flights in the weeks that followed, which he said was a topic he might revisit in any contempt hearing.
Attorneys for the five Venezuelan men deported under the Alien Enemies Act asked Boasberg on Wednesday for an updated temporary restraining order barring the administration from removing anyone under the wartime law without first providing 30 days' notice.
“This relief is urgent because the government has already indicated that, notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s ruling that notice must be sufficient to allow individuals an opportunity to seek habeas review, it may provide designated individuals with as little as 24 hours’ notice, making it virtually impossible for most class members to file habeas petitions,” the attorneys wrote in their filing.
They added that during World War II, the last time the Alien Enemies Act was invoked, those “deemed to be dangerous to the public peace and safety” were given 30 days’ notice before they could be removed.
The Supreme Court last week reversed Boasberg's restraining order, finding that he did not have jurisdiction since the deportees had been being held in Texas.
Boasberg said the fact the ruling was reversed does not mean the administration cannot be held in contempt.
The high court's determination that his order "suffered from a legal defect" does "not excuse the Government’s violation. Instead, it is a foundational legal precept that every judicial order 'must be obeyed' — no matter how 'erroneous' it 'may be' — until a court reverses it," Boasberg wrote.
"The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders — especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it," Boasberg wrote. "To permit such officials to freely 'annul the judgments of the courts of the United States' would not just 'destroy the rights acquired under those judgments'; it would make 'a solemn mockery' of 'he constitution itself.'”
Boasberg ruled a day after another judge presiding over the case of a Maryland man the administration says it mistakenly deported to El Salvador suggested she is weighing contempt proceedings over the administration's failure to comply with her orders to "facilitate" his return to the United States. That man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was deported the same day as the flights authorized under the Alien Enemies Act.
Boasberg said that if administration officials decide "to purge their contempt, they shall file by April 23, 2025, a declaration explaining the steps they have taken and will take to do so."
If they "opt not to purge their contempt, they shall instead file by April 23, 2025, declaration(s) identifying the individual(s) who, with knowledge of the Court’s classwide Temporary Restraining Order, made the decision not to halt the transfer of class members out of U.S. custody on March 15 and 16, 2025," he wrote.
Skye Perryman of Democracy Forward, one of the groups representing the plaintiffs, said Boasberg's ruling "affirms what we have long known: the government’s conduct in this case is unlawful and a threat to people and our constitution."
