The White House has denied allegations that it engaged in a “a blatant violation” of a judge’s order by deporting about 250 Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador on Saturday, with the US border czar appearing to contradict the denial on Monday by declaring: “I don’t care what the judges think.”
The US district judge James E Boasberg has scheduled a hearing for Monday afternoon to demand an explanation about why his Saturday order temporarily blocking the deportation flights had apparently been ignored.
The Trump administration had ordered at least some of the deportations using the Alien Enemies Act, a law from 1798 that is meant to be used during wartime. The president quietly invoked the law on Friday and progressive groups almost immediately sued to stop it.
On Saturday, during a court hearing over the case, Boasberg added a verbal order that any flights that had already departed with Venezuelan immigrants using the Alien Enemies Act turn around and return to the US.
“This is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately,” he told the justice department, according to the Washington Post.
At that point (about 6.51pm ET, according to Axios), both flights were off the Yucatán peninsula, according to flight paths posted on X.
Later on Saturday night, however, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, confirmed that the planes had landed in his country and the alleged gang members were in custody, posting on social media, “Oopsie … too late” above a news article about the judge’s order to turn the planes around.
White House officials insisted that the migrants were no longer in US territory when the judge issued his order, claiming that it therefore did not apply.
The administration “did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order”, said the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, in a statement on Monday.
She also argued, however, that the order itself did not need to be followed in the first place.
“The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from US territory,” Leavitt said. “The written order and the administration’s actions do not conflict.
“As the supreme court has repeatedly made clear – federal courts generally have no jurisdiction over the president’s conduct of foreign affairs, his authorities under the Alien Enemies Act, and his core Article II powers to remove foreign alien terrorists from US soil and repel a declared invasion.
“A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrying foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from US soil.”
Other Trump administration officials, who have not been named, echoed similar statements to Axios about the ruling coming too late, claiming that the administration did not defy the judge as the planes were “already outside of US airspace” and therefore arguing that the order was “not applicable”.
In a court filing on Monday, lawyers for the administration said that the judge’s oral order was “not enforceable”.
ABC News also reported that the administration cited “operational” and “national security” reasons that the planes needed to land, and that the two planes took off during the hearing on Saturday.
When asked by a reporter on Sunday whether the administration violated the judge’s orders, Donald Trump said: “I don’t know, you have to speak to the lawyers about that.” He added: “I can tell you this, these were bad people.”
Reuters reported that the Trump administration stated in a court filing on Sunday that “some” of the Venezuelans had already been removed from the US before the judge’s order, but did not provide any further details.
The New York Times noted that the filing implied that the government had other legal grounds for the deportations of the Venezuelans, other than the use of the Alien Enemies Act that was blocked by the judge.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward, which sued to stop the use of the act, added in a court filing on Monday that they believe that the government violated the court order , calling the administration’s actions a “blatant violation of the court’s order”.
The rights groups asked the judge to compel the administration to clarify whether any flights departed after the judge’s orders, and to provide more information on the flight timings.
On Monday morning, Boasberg scheduled a 4pm hearing for the Trump administration to explain if they defied his order.
Later on Monday morning, Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar”, told reporters: “By the time the order came, the plane was already over international waters, with a plane full of terrorists and significant public safety threats.”
He added: “To turn the plane around over international waters” and “come back with terrorists back to the United States, that’s not what this president promised the American people”.
He followed up the remarks in an appearance on Fox and Friends, where according to the Hill he said: “I don’t care what the judges think. I don’t care.”
He repeated his claim that the flight was “already in international waters” but also questioned why the judge would want “terrorists returned to the United States”: “Look, President Trump, by proclamation, invoked the authorities of the Alien Enemies Act, which he has a right to do, and it’s a gamechanger.”
The Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck criticised the administration’s argument that it was too late to act once the planes had left the US. He argued on social media that “a federal court’s jurisdiction does not stop at the water’s edge” but rather, “the question is whether the defendants are subject to the court order, not where the conduct being challenged takes place”.
Vladeck also told the Associated Press that although the judge’s verbal directive to turn around the planes was not technically part of his final written order, nevertheless the Trump administration clearly violated the “spirit” of it.
Peter Markowitz, a Cardozo Law School professor and immigration enforcement expert, told Reuters that he believed the Trump administration’s actions “most certainly violate” the court’s order.
In a statement on Monday, the Democratic senators Alex Padilla, Cory Booker, Dick Durbin and Peter Welch condemned Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.
“Let’s be clear: we are not at war, and immigrants are not invading our country,” they said. “Furthermore, courts determine whether people have broken the law – not a president acting alone, and not immigration agents picking and choosing who gets imprisoned or deported.”
The deportations may not be the only instance of the White House directly violating a court order, after the administration reportedly deported Dr Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist and Brown University professor, despite a court order temporarily blocking her expulsion.
Citing her attorney and court documents, the New York Times reported that the 34-year-old Lebanese citizen – who had a valid US visa – was detained on Thursday upon returning to the US after visiting family in Lebanon. A federal judge had reportedly ordered the government to provide the court with 48 hours’ notice before deporting Alawieh, but she was reportedly put on a flight to Paris anyway. A hearing in her case is set for Monday.
