Inset: Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg (U.S. District Courts). Main: President Donald Trump listens as then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of “Alligator Alcatraz,” a new migrant detention facility at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility, Tuesday, July 1, 2025, in Ochopee, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci).
The Trump administration is urging a federal appeals court to uphold its previous decision that halted a contempt investigation concerning the deportation of several immigrants to El Salvador. This investigation was spearheaded by a district court judge known for challenging former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
In mid-April, a split panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit intervened with a mandamus order, effectively halting the inquiry. This decision came nearly a year after the lower court’s order, which had been prompted by detainees filing habeas corpus petitions and seeking other legal remedies.
Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), representing the deported immigrants, requested a full court review of the case. In response, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion opposing the ACLU’s request for an en banc hearing, asserting that the original ruling was correct and criticizing the lower court for its persistent attempts to probe the executive branch’s actions.
The Justice Department’s 20-page opposition motion argues against the district court’s wide-ranging investigation, which includes examining national security and foreign policy discussions among senior Executive officials. The motion criticizes the court’s efforts as unnecessary, given that the government did not breach any court order, and emphasizes that any potential criminal contempt referral is legally unfounded.
Now, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed its opposition to the ACLU’s petition for a hearing en banc, telling the judges they got the issues right the first time and, in stark terms, chiding the lower court over its continued efforts to investigate the executive branch.
“The panel in this case granted a writ of mandamus to stop the district court from conducting a wide-ranging inquisition into national-security and foreign-policy deliberations of senior Executive officials, including by putting the Government’s counsel of record on the stand for cross-examination by opposing counsel—all in service of a potential referral for criminal contempt that is legally foreclosed by the fact that the Government did not violate any court order,” the 20-page opposition motion begins.
On April 16, 2025, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, a jurist who got his start under George W. Bush and who was later promoted by Barack Obama, found probable cause that the government was in contempt. That contempt finding was in response to the admitted violation of a March 2025 court order directing the Trump administration to turn two planes around containing 238 Venezuelan immigrants who were bound for a notorious prison in El Salvador under the auspices of the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) of 1798.
On April 14, 2026, the appellate court told Boasberg to back off. The opinion was penned and joined by U.S. Circuit Judges Neomi Rao and Justin Walker, respectively, who were appointed by Trump. In dissent was Circuit Judge J. Michelle Childs, an Obama appointee.
To hear the ACLU tell it, the panel’s ruling conflicts with what the Trump administration itself understood about the case.
“The panel’s 2-1 ruling mandated that Chief Judge Boasberg end his criminal contempt inquiry into the brazen violation of his order not to remove Plaintiffs to El Salvador—a violation that resulted in Plaintiffs being subjected to months of abuse and torture at the notorious CECOT prison,” the reconsideration motion begins.
Not so, says the Trump administration.
“The panel agreed that courts have the power to enforce their orders, including through referral for criminal contempt,” the opposition motion goes on. “Instead, the panel merely concluded that, on these facts, no contempt charge could succeed because the plain meaning of the district court’s injunction did not prohibit the Government’s conduct, and that in all events the testimony that the district court sought to compel was irrelevant to a potential referral while needlessly inviting a clash between the Judiciary and the Executive.”
To hear the DOJ tell it, three members of the D.C. Circuit “have now agreed that the Government’s actions” in March 2025, meaning the deportation flights, “did not violate any court orders.”
The Trump administration has long maintained that Boasberg’s order, issued from the bench, was not clear, either because it was not written out, not specific enough, because the order was too broad, because the DOJ counsel did not understand the order, or for other reasons.
In turn, Boasberg has tried for months to get to the bottom of whether various officials willfully violated his March 15, 2025, temporary restraining order when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pushed ahead with AEA removals of hundreds of men the government alleged were affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang.
The government now says the issue should no longer be debated.
“Given that criminal contempt can lie only from violation of a clear and unambiguous order, those conclusions are fatal to any such charge—whether this case is reheard en banc or not. Rehearing would thus only raise the temperature (and tee up a series of difficult questions that the panel did not have to confront), without serving any real purpose,” the latest motion continues. “The Court should deny the petition.”
And, in any event, the DOJ says any contempt finding that could have been issued should have been issued at an earlier time.
“The district court embarked on this treacherous path even though no further information was necessary for the district court to make a referral if it still believed one to be warranted,” the latest motion argues. “The panel’s decision was correct.”
