Venezuelan migrants targeted by the Trump administration for deportation under a little-used 18th-century law must be allowed to challenge the decision to remove them, a judge ruled on Monday in rejecting the government’s request to set aside a temporary ban on such deportations.
Republican President Donald Trump earlier this month invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to justify the deportation of alleged members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua without final removal orders from immigration judges.
In an order on Monday, Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said the people the Trump administration is seeking to deport under the law must be given the chance to challenge the government’s assertion that they are indeed members of Tren de Aragua.
The judge also rejected the Trump administration’s request to set aside a two-week ban on deportations under the Alien Enemies Act he imposed on March 15, meaning the ban remains in place.
The ban prompted Trump to call for Boasberg’s impeachment in a process that could lead to his removal. In response, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement rebuking Trump and stating that appeals, not impeachment, are the proper response to disagreements with judicial decisions.
The case has emerged as a major test of Trump’s sweeping assertion of executive power on the U.S. constitutional system of checks and balances. With Republicans in Congress largely falling in line behind the president’s agenda, federal judges often have emerged as the only constraint on Trump’s wave of executive actions.
Trump has argued that it is the judiciary, not his administration, that is overreaching.
Boasberg is weighing whether the Trump administration violated his order by failing to return deportation flights that landed in El Salvador, where the migrants are being held, after his order was issued.
In Monday’s ruling, the judge wrote that the administration appeared to have “hustled people onto those planes” after he initially issued a more narrow order preventing the deportation of five unnamed Venezuelan plaintiffs in response to a request by lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union.
He later expanded the order to apply to any Venezuelan migrant targeted under the Alien Enemies Act.
Separately, a federal appeals court is due to hear arguments on Monday at 1:30 p.m. from government lawyers seeking to halt Boasberg’s order.
‘POOR LIVING CONDITIONS’
The Trump administration on March 15 deported more than 200 people to El Salvador, where they are being detained in the country’s massive anti-terrorism prison under a deal in which Washington is paying President Nayib Bukele’s government $6 million.
Boasberg cited accounts of poor conditions in the prison as one justification for maintaining the ban on deportations. The judge referenced reports of people held in Salvadoran prisons rarely leaving their cells, not having regular access to food and water, and having to sleep standing up because of overcrowding.
“Beyond poor living conditions, Salvadoran inmates are, according to evidence presented, often disciplined through beatings and humiliation,” Boasberg wrote.
El Salvador’s presidential office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Boasberg’s ruling on Monday applied to the five plaintiffs represented by the ACLU, as well as other Venezuelans in the U.S. targeted for removal under the Alien Enemies Act. The judge did not address the migrants currently held in El Salvador.
ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt told reporters after a hearing on Friday that Boasberg has the authority to order those migrants be returned to the U.S., and said he may raise that issue in court.
“Generally speaking, a federal court can’t order a foreign country to do something,” Gelernt said. “But we think they’re constructively in U.S. custody because the U.S. is apparently paying for it all. They’re doing it at the behest of the United States.”
