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U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered lawyers for the Trump administration and for a class of deported Venezuelan migrants to come to court Wednesday to discuss the case’s status and the long-stalled question of whether the administration willfully defied his earlier court order and acted in contempt.
The new updates, codified in a minute order on Monday, are almost certain to spark fresh ire from President Donald Trump and his allies in a major immigration fight that has stretched on for more than nine months.
At issue is the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 wartime immigration law, to deport 252 Venezuelan migrants from the U.S. to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador in March.
Boasberg had issued an emergency order in March blocking the Trump administration’s use of the law to immediately deport migrants to a third country, and ordered officials to return any planes that had already left US soil.
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Despite his order, hundreds of migrants arrived in El Salvador hours later — where they remained until July, when they were removed again from CECOT to Venezuela as part of a broader prisoner exchange that involved the return of at least 10 Americans and permanent U.S. residents detained in Venezuela.
Trump officials have argued that the individuals removed were alleged members of the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua. But lawyers for the ACLU and other groups representing the migrants have vehemently disputed that claim, citing several reports from major news outlets that separately concluded that just a handful of individuals deported under the 18th century law had serious criminal records.
The Alien Enemies Act has been used three times previously in U.S. history, and most recently during World War II.
Boasberg tried for months without success to obtain information about the individuals who were deported to CECOT, and to obtain information about who in the Trump administration had ordered the flights in violation of his temporary restraining order.
In April, Boasberg ruled that the court had found “probable cause” to move on criminal contempt proceedings against the Trump administration for failing to return the migrants to U.S. soil, citing what he described as the administration’s “willful disregard” of the court.
Boasberg’s finding that the Trump administration likely acted in contempt of his March 15 emergency order had been halted for months, after a three-judge panel for the appeals court issued an emergency stay halting his order.
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In August, the judges ruled 2-1 to toss it completely. Their decision was appealed to all eleven judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to review the matter en banc.
On Friday, judges on the panel declined by an 8-3 vote to further review Boasberg’s ruling, which in theory would have kept the lower court’s ruling in place. They did not, as some of the judges explained, because the two majority judges for the panel had split in August over the reasons for tossing Boasberg’s opinion.
Therefore, the court said, “the writ of mandamus issued by the panel has no ongoing practical or precedential effect.”
The update from the en banc panel effectively clears the way for Boasberg to consider the contempt proceedings, giving him jurisdiction over the issue again for the first time in more than 200 days.
TRUMP FOE BOASBERG ORDERS DOJ TO DETAIL STATUS OF CECOT MIGRANTS SENT TO VENEZUELA
Boasberg, for his part, quickly clarified that he intends to move on the contempt question imminently.
In a minute order issued Monday morning, Boasberg ordered lawyers for the Trump administration and the ACLU, who represent the deported class of Venezuelan migrants, to appear in court Wednesday for a previously scheduled motions hearing prepared to discuss case updates and next steps in the contempt inquiry.
The Trump administration has not provided, as of this writing, a list of the migrants sent to CECOT in March, or details of their immigration status in the U.S. prior to removal.
Boasberg’s emergency order in March touched off a complex legal saga that ultimately spawned dozens of federal court challenges across the country – though the one brought before his court was the very first.
His role overseeing the case has also landed him squarely in the crosshairs of the Trump administration and the president himself, who has repeatedly excoriated Boasberg as an “activist judge.”
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