Trump Administration Challenges Court Order: Controversy Over Deportation Flights

The Trump administration has come under scrutiny for allegedly defying a court order by not recalling flights deporting Venezuelan migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador. Despite a judge’s explicit directive to reverse the flights, the administration maintains it did not breach the order. These deportations occurred under President Donald Trump’s controversial application of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (AEA), which allowed for expedited removal with minimal due process.

In a detailed five-page court filing presented on Tuesday, the administration defended its actions, revealing that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem ultimately decided to ignore Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s verbal command in March. This disclosure was made as part of Boasberg’s ongoing investigation into potential criminal contempt charges against the administration for ignoring his instructions.

The core argument from the administration is that Judge Boasberg’s verbal directive on March 15, which instructed the return of the deportees to the U.S., was effectively overridden by a subsequent written order. This written order, issued shortly after, merely prohibited further deportations under the AEA. Since the flights had already left U.S. territory, officials reasoned the migrants were already “removed” and thus could be placed in El Salvador’s custody.

The filing details how Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign communicated both the verbal and written orders from Judge Boasberg to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and then-Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who had previously served as personal lawyers for Trump. Bove has since been appointed as a federal appellate judge.

Blanche and Bove offered legal counsel concerning the flights that had already departed, directing their advice to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through its acting general counsel, Joseph Mazzara. Mazzara conveyed this guidance, alongside his own, to Noem, who subsequently authorized the transfer of the AEA detainees to El Salvador, deeming that the court’s order did not apply to those already removed.

The administration’s defense, as stated in Tuesday’s filing, rests on the assertion that the judge’s verbal directive did not constitute a legally binding order.

“That decision was lawful and was consistent with a reasonable interpretation of the Court’s order,” Tiberius Davis, counsel to the assistant attorney general, wrote in the filing. “Although the substance of the legal advice given to DHS and Secretary Noem is privileged, the Government has repeatedly explained in its briefs — both in this Court and on appeal — why its actions did not violate the Court’s order, much less constitute contempt. Specifically, the Court’s written order did not purport to require the return of detainees who had already been removed, and the earlier oral directive was not a binding injunction, especially after the written order.”

The administration also cited a recent appellate court concurrence to characterize Boasberg’s oral directives during the March 15 hearing as being “inconsistent, ‘garbled,’ and, if read in isolation, ‘indefensible.’”

“All of that confirms that it was appropriate to construe the written order as having superseded any oral directives, even assuming the latter ‘can ever be binding,’” the filing states.

Boasberg in April concluded there was probable cause “to find the Government in criminal contempt.” The judge appears ready to return to those proceedings after the D.C. Circuit lifted a monthslong hold on the case earlier this month.

Possible witnesses during the contempt proceedings include Bove, Ensign, and a former DOJ attorney who was fired after admitting in another high-profile immigration case that migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia was one of several men deported to El Salvador due to an “administrative error.”