Minister of Justice and Public Security Héctor Villatoro, right, accompanies Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a tour of the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, on March 26, 2025. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in the District of Columbia on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to allow Venezuelan men removed under an 18th-century wartime law and sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador to have their cases heard in court, though he conceded the logistics of the order would be challenging to sort out.

In a 69-page order, Judge James Boasberg partially granted an injunction to require 137 Venezuelans be given due process. He ruled that they had no chance to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, or the accusation that they are members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

The Trump administration will have until June 11 to put forth a plan for the men removed under the wartime law and sent to the mega-prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, to be afforded their due process rights.

“The Government has violated the CECOT Class’s vested right to due process, an infringement that risks inflicting irreparable harm for which the public interest requires a remedy,” Boasberg said. “The question — simply asked but not so simply answered — thus becomes what relief they must obtain for that violation.”

Boasberg said that the Trump administration “plainly deprived these individuals of their right to seek habeas relief before their summary removal from the United States — a right that need not itself be vindicated through a habeas petition.”

He said that even if President Donald Trump lawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act and if those subject to the proclamation are members of the Tren de Aragua gang, they must be given a chance to contest the charges.

“This is the critical point —there is simply no way to know for sure, as the CECOT Plaintiffs never had any opportunity to challenge the Government’s say-so.”

“Defendants instead spirited away planeloads of people before any such challenge could be made,” Boasberg continued. “And now, significant evidence has come to light indicating that many of those currently entombed in CECOT have no connection to the gang and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations.”

Order doesn’t require return

The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the case, sought to require the Venezuelans be brought back to the U.S. from El Salvador to challenge their removals. But Boasberg rejected that argument.

Boasberg determined that even though there is a financial agreement between the U.S. and El Salvador to detain the men, they are in the custody of the Salvadoran government.

“While it is a close question, the current record does not support Plaintiffs’ assertion that they are in the constructive custody of the United States,” Boasberg said.

“Even crediting the public statements characterizing the arrangement as outsourcing the U.S. prison system and acknowledging the President’s unofficial assertion of his power to request a release, such comments cannot overcome a sworn declaration from a knowledgeable government official attesting that the CECOT Class’s ongoing detention is a question of Salvadoran law.”

Department of Justice attorneys have used the same reasoning in a separate case to resist the return of the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, despite a U.S. Supreme Court order to “facilitate” the Maryland man’s return to the U.S.

ACLU will be allowed to have input to determine how due process can be afforded to the men at CECOT, Boasberg wrote.

Wednesday’s order is the latest in a months-long dispute between the Trump administration and Boasberg after three planes landed in El Salvador and roughly 300 men were sent to CECOT in mid-March, despite the judge’s temporary restraining order against using the Alien Enemies Act.

Boasberg found probable cause to hold Trump officials in contempt for violating his temporary restraining order that ordered the deportation planes carrying men removed under the Alien Enemies Act to be returned to the U.S. over concerns they did not receive due process.