A federal judge has mandated that the Trump administration must provide hundreds of deported Venezuelans the chance to present their cases in U.S. courts.

The Venezuelan individuals argue that their rights to due process were breached when they were denied the opportunity to contest their deportation under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), which, according to them, was invoked by President Donald Trump without public disclosure. This act led to their detention and subsequent transfer to a widely criticized “mega-prison” in El Salvador. Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia expressed his view on whether the administration adhered to legal protocols.

In his 43-page ruling issued Monday, Judge Boasberg stated, “This Court is declaring that Plaintiffs should not have been removed in the manner that they were, with virtually no notice and no opportunity to contest the bases of their removal, in clear contravention of their due-process rights.”

Appointed by Barack Obama, Judge Boasberg noted that the facts and the “complex” procedural history of the case are “well documented.” On March 14, Trump used the AEA to deport many Venezuelan men to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) in El Salvador, citing a claim that a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA), had invaded and disrupted the U.S. Out of those deported, 137 men united to sue the Trump administration. Boasberg found that they were deported “without explanation and without a chance to challenge the reasons for their abrupt removal.”

The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction to compel the government to “facilitate” their return to the United States.

About four months after their deportation, all 252 Venezuelans held in CECOT, including the 137 who filed the lawsuit, were returned to Venezuela. In response, Venezuela released 10 U.S. citizens and 80 Venezuelan political detainees. The Trump administration has argued that this resolution effectively concluded the legal proceedings.

However, the Venezuelan men, naturally, saw things differently. They again requested an injunction, saying, in Boasberg’s account, that at this point they “do not directly challenge the validity of the President’s Proclamation invoking the AEA” nor even “their individual designations” as members of TdA. “Instead, they simply seek the chance to raise these arguments before a United States court and ask that this Court help facilitate such opportunity,” Boasberg wrote.

The administration contends that the Venezuelan men were not in its control once they were deported to El Salvador, and that it could not “facilitate” their return. Boasberg found little merit to this claim, especially given that the U.S. was paying the Central American country for its efforts.

He also pointed out that the men do not “attack” their “now-ended detention in CECOT,” but rather their failure to receive a hearing to challenge the actions that sent them there. As the D.C. judge put it, “Although their detention has now ended — likely after much suffering by Plaintiffs … other consequences continue.”

The judge subsequently scolded the administration for its behavior in the 9-month-plus saga.

“Plaintiffs’ hasty and secretive removal from the United States was certainly intended to deprive them of an opportunity to secure prior judicial review,” he wrote, citing a whistleblower’s claims that then-Principal Assistant Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove stated in a meeting that if courts tried to stop deportations, the Department of Justice would “need to consider telling the courts, ‘F— you’ and ignore any court order.”

Boasberg then places the current status of the case in context. He writes, of the plaintiffs, at length:

They seek, as this Court ordered in June, an injunction requiring the Government to “facilitate Plaintiffs’ ability to proceed through habeas,” as if they had not been improperly removed in the first instance. Put differently, they could have challenged the validity of the President’s Proclamation invoking the AEA, the propriety of removing noncitizens outside the processes in the Immigration and Nationality Act, and their individual designations as TdA members, back in March had they been afforded the opportunity to do so before their hasty removal. They now seek the chance to raise each of those arguments, and presumably more, in United States courts upon return to this country.

The judge then reaffirmed that he was granting the motion for summary judgment, which orders the Trump administration to offer the men their due process rights.

“By granting the Motion, this Court is declaring that Plaintiffs should not have been removed in the manner that they were, with virtually no notice and no opportunity to contest the bases of their removal, in clear contravention of their due-process rights,” Boasberg wrote. “The Court finds that the only remedy that would give effect to its granting of Plaintiffs’ Motion would be to order the Government to undo the effects of their unlawful removal by facilitating a meaningful opportunity to contest their designation and the Proclamation’s validity.”

He has ordered the administration to submit a proposal “either to facilitate the return of Plaintiffs to the United States or to otherwise provide them with hearings that satisfy the requirements of due process” by Jan. 5, 2026.

The order comes at a time of especially strained relations between the U.S. and Venezuela. The U.S. has seized ships linked to Venezuelan oil and carried out strikes on boats near the Venezuelan coast, killing roughly 100 people. Venezuela has accused the U.S. of “piracy” and “aggression.”