Trump administration defends deportations despite court orders

In a major clash between the executive and judicial branches, a district judge has argued the Trump administration defied a court order to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador.

The US Supreme Court in Washington. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

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A major clash between the executive and judicial branches is playing out in Washington as the Trump administration says a federal court lacks the jurisdiction to stop it deporting foreign gang members labelled terrorists by the US President under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.

The Trump administration says it deported 261 people over the weekend – including 137 under the Alien Enemies Act – despite Judge James Boasberg of the federal District Court in Washington issuing a temporary restraining order on Saturday. This order blocked the government from deporting any non-citizens held in US custody under the law for a period of 14 days.

But despite the restraining order, issued as a result of a lawsuit filed by Democracy Forward and the American Civil Liberties Union, the US government did not turn around two planes carrying deportees to El Salvador after they left from Texas on Saturday evening.

The action earned a rebuke on Monday from Judge Boasberg, who suggested the Trump administration had effectively responded to his order by saying, “We don’t care, we’ll do what we want.”

The deportees on the planes were transferred to a “mega-prison” in Tecoluca, including nearly 200 people alleged to be members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, with the decision not to turn back the planes raising fresh questions about whether the administration had knowingly defied the court.

Patrick Eddington, a senior fellow in homeland security and civil liberties at the classical liberal Cato Institute think tank in Washington, told The Australian this was “unequivocally” a case of the administration defying the court.

“The Constitution does not allow due process-free deportations, even under the Alien Enemies Act,” he said. “It’s not an experiment — it’s a real time assault on the entire constitutional order in America.”

But senior adviser to Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, told reporters at the White House that Judge Boasberg had no jurisdiction to issue a halt on deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. He warned it was an unjustified infringement of the President’s executive authority.

“It is without doubt the most unlawful order a judge has issued in our lifetimes,” he said. “A district court judge has no authority to direct the national security operations of the executive branch. The president has operated the absolute apex of his constitutional authority.”

He doubled down on CNN, saying that “a district court has no ability to in any way restrain the President’s authority under the Alien Enemies Act.”

A hearing was held on Monday afternoon in Washington before Judge Boasberg to determine whether the Trump administration had violated the temporary restraining order, with the US Department of Justice urging the court beforehand to “vacate the hearing and de-escalate the grave incursions on Executive Branch authority that have already arisen.”

The Department also tried to have the case reassigned away from Judge Boasberg. Appointed by President Barack Obama, he admonished the Department for its arguments on Monday local time as a “heck of a stretch.”

In its six-page motion to vacate the hearing, signed by Attorney-General Pam Bondi, the Department made a number of defences. It said the court “lacks jurisdiction” and argued the deportees were not covered by the order as they were already outside of US territory and airspace at the time it was issued.

“Just as a court assuredly could not enjoin the President from carrying out a foreign drone strike or an overseas military operation … nor could a court lawfully restrict the President’s inherent Article II authority to work with a foreign nation to transfer terrorists and criminals who are already outside the United States,” it said.

One of the other key claims was that the planes on their way to El Salvador on Saturday night did not need to be turned back because this direction was contained in an oral order issued by Judge Boasberg at about 6.45pm (local time). It was not included in his subsequent written injunction made at 7.25pm that same night.

“An oral directive is not enforceable as an injunction,” the Department said. “The written minute order governed … The government did not violate that injunction. As Plaintiffs themselves say, the two flights that they identified departed from the United States before 7.25 PM EDT.”

While it was not in his written injunction, Judge Boasberg did tell the court on Saturday 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 added: “This is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately.”

At the hearing on Monday, he requested – in writing – further information seeking an explanation about how many planes departed America, how many deportees left the country, which countries they arrived in, when the flights departed, when they left US airspace and what time they landed. The responses are to be provided by midday on Tuesday and will inform any decision on disciplinary measures against government lawyers.

“You knew in the morning (on Saturday) that there would be a hearing at 5pm, so any plane that you put into the air in or around that time you knew that I was having a hearing about,” Judge Boasberg said. “So when I said directly to turn those planes around, the idea that my written order was pithier, that this could be disregarded, that’s a heck of a stretch.”

He said it was “pretty clear” he did have the jurisdiction to direct a return of the flights and, if the administration disagreed, it should have turned the planes back before appealing. “Wouldn’t it have been the better course to return these planes to the United States instead of saying, ‘We don’t care, we’ll do what we want?’” he asked.

Speaking earlier in the day, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that, over the weekend, the Department of Homeland Security had “carried out a counter terrorism operation deporting nearly 200 violent Tren de Aragua terrorists, which will save countless American lives.”

“These heinous monsters were extracted and removed to El Salvador, where they will no longer be able to pose any threats to the American public. Tren de Aragua is one of the most ruthless terrorist gangs in the world and they are responsible for some of the most heinous crimes that have occurred in our nation’s history in recent years,” she said.

Ms Leavitt said that the administration had “acted within the confines of the law.”

“These are designated foreign terrorists. The President signed a proclamation on February 20, 2025 designating TDA as a foreign terrorist organisation. That was in consultation with the Attorney-General,” she said. “All of the planes that were subject to the written order – the judges written order – took off before the order was entered in the courtroom on Saturday.”

“There’s actually questions about whether a verbal order carries the same weight … as a written order, and our lawyers are determined to ask and answer those questions in court,” she said.

She provided a breakdown of the 261 illegal aliens who were deported, noting that “137 of those were deported under the Alien Enemies Act; 101 of those were Venezuelans removed via Title 8, which, as you know, are regular immigration proceedings. And 23 of them were MS-13 Salvadorian gang members. There were also two MS-13 ring leaders as part of that group of 23.”

Asked for the basis on which the administration had determined that those being deported were gang members, Ms Leavitt replied: “Intelligence and the men and women on the ground in the interior of our country who are finally being allowed to do their job.”

The temporary restraining ordered by Judge Boasberg on Saturday would have allowed further arguments on whether the use of the Alien Enemies Act – a wartime authority allowing the President to detain and deport the citizens of enemy nations without due process and invoked only three times in the conflicts of 1812 and both World Wars – was lawful. It did not constitute a final decision on the matter.

The Justice Department has asked the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to lift the restraining order and a ruling is expected on this matter later this week.