White House ignores judicial deportation blocks

Venezuelan deportees from US sent to prison in El Salvador

(Image credit: El Salvador Presidency / Handout / Anadolu via Getty Images)

What happened

The Trump administration said Sunday it had deported dozens of Venezuelans to El Salvador on Saturday under an executive proclamation President Donald Trump quietly signed Friday, claiming wartime powers under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to summarily expel alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang. The deportations appeared to defy an order from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg. Another federal judge said Sunday that immigration officials in Boston had apparently "willfully" deported Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese kidney transplant specialist at Brown University with a valid H-1B visa, despite his order blocking her expulsion.

Who said what

Boasberg told government lawyers at 6:47 p.m. on Saturday that any airplanes with people being deported under the 1798 law must "immediately" return to the U.S, even if that meant "turning around the plane." The Alien Enemies Act has only been invoked three times, most recently in World War II to inter Japanese Americans.

According to flight tracking sites and video posted by El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, three flights carrying 261 immigrants landed in San Salvador more than five hours after Boasberg's restraining order, and one left Texas 10 minutes after it was filed. "Oopsie, too late," Bukele said Sunday on X, with a laughing emoji. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reposted the comment. The video showed the deportees transported to a notorious prison.

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Boasberg's written order, filed at 7:26 p.m., "didn't explicitly mention planes that were already in the air," The Wall Street Journal said. "Typically lawyers view orders issued orally by judges as carrying full legal weight," but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt "appeared to point to" that omission Sunday. The White House "did not 'refuse to comply' with a court order," she said.

Legal analysts Sunday were "stitching together the timeline" to determine "how close the Trump administration is to open defiance of the Constitution's system of checks and balances," The New York Times said. "We wanted them on the ground first, before a judge could get the case, but this is how it worked out," a White House official told Axios. Two officials said the White House ignored Boasberg's order after lawyers decided it did not apply because the planes were out of U.S. airspace.

What next?

Boasberg scheduled a Friday hearing on the merits of the case, even as the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., weighs the Trump administration's appeal.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.