Boasberg to resume contempt of Trump in Alien Enemies Act affair

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered lawyers for the Trump administration and a group of deported Venezuelan migrants to appear in court Wednesday to discuss the status of the case and the long-stalled question of whether the administration deliberately defied its earlier court order and acted in contempt.

The new updates, codified in one minute Monday, will almost certainly draw fresh anger from President Donald Trump and his allies in a major immigration fight that has lasted more than nine months.

At issue is the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime immigration law from 1798, to deport 252 Venezuelan migrants from the United States to a maximum security prison in El Salvador in March.

Boasberg issued an emergency order in March blocking the Use by the Trump administration of law to immediately expel migrants to a third country, and ordered authorities to return all planes that have already left American soil.

WHO IS JAMES BOASBERG, THE AMERICAN JUDGE AT THE CENTER OF TRUMP’S DEPORTATION EFFORTS?

WASHINGTON, DC- Judge James E. Boasberg, Chief Judge of the DC Federal District Court, stands for a portrait at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington, DC, March 16, 2023. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Despite this order, hundreds of migrants arrived in El Salvador hours later — where they remained until July, when they were deported from CECOT again 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 argued that the deported individuals were suspected members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang. But lawyers for the ACLU and other groups representing migrants vehemently disputed that claim, citing several major media reports that separately concluded that only a handful of individuals deported under the 18th-century law had extensive criminal records.

The Alien Enemies Act has been used three times in US history, most recently during World War II.

Boasberg tried for months, unsuccessfully, to obtain information about those deported to CECOT and to obtain information about who in the Trump administration ordered these flights in violation of his temporary restraining order.

In April, Boasberg ruled that the court found “probable cause” to bring 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 conclusion that the Trump administration likely acted in defiance of his March 15 emergency order had been on hold for months, after a three-judge appeals court panel issued an emergency stay ending his order.

EX-JUDGES BLAST TOP OFFICIAL TRUMP DOJ FOR DECLARING “WAR” IN COURTS

Migrants deported from the United States to El Salvador are seen in this March 31, 2025 photo provided by the Salvadoran government. (El Salvador Press Presidency Office/Anadolu via Getty Images)

In August, the judges ruled 2-1 to abandon it altogether. Their decision was appealed to the eleven judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to review the case en banc.

On Friday, the panel’s judges declined 8-3 to further review Boasberg’s decision, which in theory would have upheld the lower court’s ruling. This is not the case, as some judges explained, because the panel’s two majority judges split in August over the reasons for rejecting Boasberg’s opinion.

Therefore, the court stated that “the writ of mandamus issued by the committee has no permanent practical or precedential effect.”

The en banc panel’s update effectively clears the way for Boasberg to consider the contempt proceeding, giving him jurisdiction over the matter again for the first time in more than 200 days.

TRUMP FOE BOASBERG ORDERS DOJ TO DETAIL STATUS OF CECOT MIGRANTS SENT TO VENEZUELA

This split image shows President Donald Trump and a group of protesters demonstrating against the Trump administration’s return of hundreds of migrants to El Salvador’s CECOT prison in March 2025. (Getty Images)

Boasberg, for his part, quickly clarified that he intended to move forward on the contempt issue soon.

In an order issued Monday morning, Boasberg ordered attorneys from the Trump administration and the ACLU, who represent the class of deported Venezuelan migrants, to appear in court Wednesday for a previously scheduled motions hearing prepared to discuss updates to the case and next steps in the contempt investigation.

The Trump administration has not provided, as of this writing, a list of migrants sent to CECOT in March, nor details of their immigration status in the United States before their removal.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Boasberg’s emergency order in March set off a complex legal saga that ultimately spawned dozens of challenges in federal courts across the country — although the one in his court was the first ever.

His role in overseeing the case also put him directly in the crosshairs of the Trump administration and the president himself, who has repeatedly criticized Boasberg as an “activist judge.”