Judge finds Trump administration wilfully defied court orders in deportation case

Court tells Trump officials to act quickly to avoid potential prosecution for criminal contempt

Prison guards transfer deportees from the US, alleged to be Venezuelan gang members, to the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador in March. Picture: El Salvador presidential press office via AP

A federal judge found the Trump administration wilfully disregarded a court order when it failed to return planes full of migrants on their way to a prison in El Salvador and has ordered the government to act quickly to avoid possible prosecution for criminal contempt.

US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington said in a Wednesday order there was probable cause to find Trump administration officials in contempt of court. He ordered the government by next week to either show him an attempt to remedy the violation or provide information from administration officials — under oath — about the decision.

The controversy centres on an emergency hearing Boasberg convened March 15 in a case challenging the administration’s use of a wartime law to deport dozens of alleged members of Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan gang.

Donald Trump with El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office on Monday. Photo Brendan Smialowski / AFP

Trump signed the proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act on a Friday and deportations began that Saturday morning. Lawyers for a group of immigrants bringing the challenge had asked Boasberg to halt the deportation flights immediately. During the March 15 hearing, Boasberg said that planes that had taken off or were in the air should be returned to the US immediately.

About 30 minutes later, he formalised his restraining order in writing — but didn’t explicitly mention turning around flights. The flights landed in El Salvador later that evening.

The Supreme Court later dissolved Boasberg’s order in a narrow ruling, finding the challenges should have been brought as habeas corpus cases in the judicial districts where the deportees had been held, not wholesale in Washington. The justices’ later ruling doesn’t retroactively cancel out the weight of his initial order or negate questions about whether it was defied, Boasberg found.

“The Constitution does not tolerate wilful disobedience of judicial orders — especially by officials of a co-ordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it,” Boasberg wrote in Wednesday’s order.

Wall Street Journal