White House Border Czar Tom Homan talks with reporters on the driveway outside the West Wing on March 17, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration lost a round Wednesday night in its attempts to use a wartime law for deportations of Venezuelans accused of gang ties.

The 2-1 decision by a U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit panel will keep in place a temporary restraining order to prevent any more deportations of Venezuelan nationals ages 14 and older under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, invoked by President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration sent three deportation flights carrying more than 250 men to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador after the restraining order was issued.

Judge Patricia A. Millett, a nominee of President Barack Obama, and Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a nominee of President George H.W. Bush, ruled that the Department of Justice did not meet the requirements to lift the order.

Henderson also noted a presidential proclamation signed by Trump did not set up a due process to allow those accused under the Alien Enemies Act to challenge it.

Judge Justin R. Walker, who was appointed by Trump, agreed with the Trump administration’s request to block the restraining order.

Shortly after the appeals court order, the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the suit against the Trump administration, filed a request with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking for the temporary restraining order to be extended for another 14 days.

The ACLU noted it plans to file a preliminary injunction request on Friday “in which they intend to submit additional factual material so that there is a more complete record.”

A hearing on the preliminary injunction is set for April 8.

Bondi and state secrets privilege

Wednesday’s decision comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday invoked the “state secrets privilege” to block U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg from obtaining additional information about deportation flights carried out under the Alien Enemies Act.

The privilege is a common-law doctrine that protects sensitive national security information from being released.

Boasberg has sought detailed information about the timing of the three deportation planes to determine if the Trump administration violated his order.

From the bench on March 15, he gave a verbal order that blocked the use of the act and ordered anyone on the deportation flights subject to the Alien Enemies Act to be returned to the United States.

The Trump administration has said only two of the three planes carried Venezuelans subject to the proclamation.

Due process

Henderson, in her opinion, noted that the Trump administration “has yet to show a likelihood of success on the merits.”

In oral arguments before the appeals court Monday, the Department of Justice argued that the U.S. District Court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the case and that the Trump administration’s “conduct is lawful under the plain text of the Alien Enemies Act.”

Henderson also raised due process issues. She noted that the temporary restraining order is simply pausing “the summary removal of Venezuelan immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador or other unknown locations without first affording them some semblance of due process to contest the legal and factual bases for removal.

“In the government’s view, based on its allegation alone, Plaintiffs can be removed immediately with no notice, no hearing, no opportunity—zero process—to show that they are not members of the gang, to contest their eligibility for removal under the law, or to invoke legal protections against being sent to a place where it appears likely they will be tortured and their lives endangered,” she said.

Millett in her opinion questioned why the Trump administration would ask for an emergency ruling to lift the order from Boasberg because “the government’s persistent theme for the last ten days has been that the district court’s oral direction regarding the airplanes was not a (Temporary Restraining Order) with which it had to comply.”

“But the one thing that is not tolerable is for the government to seek from this court a stay of an order that the government at the very same time is telling the district court is not an order with which compliance was ever required,” she said.  “Heads the government wins, tails the district court loses is no way to obtain the exceptional relief of a (Temporary Restraining Order) stay.”

Millett also criticized the Department of Justice for appealing to the circuit court first before trying the district court.

“I would deny the stay on this additional ground,” she said. “The government needs to play by the same rules it preaches. And it needs to respect court rules.”

Judge sides with DOJ

Walker, who appeared to align with the Department of Justice’s arguments on Monday, sided with the Trump administration.

In his opinion he reiterated his stance from Monday’s oral arguments.

Walker again argued that the right way for Venezuelans to object to detention under the Alien Enemies Act is a habeas corpus claim, which is used to challenge an unjust imprisonment, including immigration detention.

The original five men who brought the suit under the Alien Enemies Act, before the federal judge moved to a class suit, were in a detention center in Texas, rather than the District of Columbia.

“The problem for the Plaintiffs is that habeas claims must be brought in the district where the Plaintiffs are confined,” he said. “For the named Plaintiffs at least, that is the Southern District of Texas.”

Tren de Aragua gang

Border Czar Tom Homan said Monday that he was confident that the more than 250 Venezuelans on the deportation flights were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, according to White House pool reports.

Homan said that he got “assurances from the highest levels of (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) that” everyone on the planes were members of the Tren de Aragua.

“We’re talking about terrorists,” he said. “These are not good people.”

Immigration attorneys for the men and family members have said those sent to the mega-prison had no criminal record or were in asylum proceedings before an immigration judge. 

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard arguments at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse on March 24, 2025, over a challenge of a lower court’s restraining order barring the administration from deporting Venezuelan immigrants under a wartime law. (U.S. General Services Administration photo)

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice late Monday invoked the “state secrets privilege” to block a federal judge from obtaining information about deportation flights carried out under a wartime law.

District of Columbia District Judge James E. Boasberg has been trying to determine if the Trump administration violated a restraining order he had placed in connection with the deportations of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

The Trump administration said Monday further details could not be provided about the flights to El Salvador, where the alleged gang members were sent to a mega-prison.

The filing, signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, uses the state secrets privilege to refuse answering questions posed in a March 18 order from Boasberg, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The privilege is a common-law doctrine that protects sensitive national security information from being released.

“The Court has all of the facts it needs to address the compliance issues before it,” according to the DOJ filing. “Further intrusions on the Executive Branch would present dangerous and wholly unwarranted separation-of-powers harms with respect to diplomatic and national security concerns that the Court lacks competence to address.”

In his March 18 order, Boasberg wanted details about what times the flights took off from the United States, when they left U.S. airspace, when they landed in their designated countries, when the immigrants being deported were subject to the Alien Enemies Act and the number of people on the flights who were subject to the Alien Enemies Act.

The DOJ filing cites national security issues and says that “confirming the exact time the flights departed, or their particular locations at some other time, would facilitate efforts to track those flights and future flights.”

“In turn, disclosing any information that assists in the tracking of the flights would both endanger the government personnel operating those flights and aid efforts by our adversaries to draw inferences about diplomatic negotiations and coordination relating to operations by the Executive Branch to remove terrorists and other criminal aliens from the country,” according to the filing. “Simply put, the Court has no cause to compel disclosure of information that would undermine or impede future counterterrorism operations by the United States.”

Appeals court action

The filing followed the Trump administration’s request for an emergency hearing before a District of Columbia federal appeals court.

A panel of three federal appellate judges seemed split Monday while hearing the Trump administration’s challenge of the lower court’s restraining order on the use of the wartime law to deport, without due process, the Venezuelan nationals. 

Judge Justin R. Walker, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Donald Trump, appeared to align with the Department of Justice’s arguments, while Judge Patricia A. Millett, whom Democratic President Barack Obama appointed, raised serious questions about due process.

The position of Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a President George H.W. Bush nominee who is the third member of the panel, spoke less than the others and revealed little about her position.

The panel will rule on the government’s challenge of the temporary restraining order placed by Boasberg, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Justice Department argued the order undercut the president’s wartime authority and that the suit by civil rights groups should have been brought to a different court.

Groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union argued Boasberg’s order correctly defended due process protections.

The D.C. Circuit hearing followed back-and-forth hearings before Boasberg, who has vowed to determine whether the Trump administration violated his March 15 oral order to turn around deportation planes.

After Boasberg issued his order, three deportation planes still landed in El Salvador, with mostly Venezuelan men taken to a notorious mega-prison.

Shortly before Monday’s hearing, Boasberg rejected the latest Trump administration attempt to vacate his restraining order that barred use of the proclamation without due process.

In Monday’s order, Boasberg said anyone who is removed from the U.S. under the act is “entitled to individualized hearings.”

“Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge,” he wrote. “Nor may any members of the provisionally certified class be removed until they have been given the opportunity to challenge their designations as well.”

Due process

Millett grilled Department of Justice attorney Drew Ensign on the Trump administration’s view on what due process should be granted to those subject to the proclamation, which states that any Venezuelan national 14 and older with suspected ties to the Tren de Aragua gang may be deported.

Ensign said the Trump administration doesn’t agree that those subject to the proclamation the president signed March 14 should be notified they are being removed under the Alien Enemies Act.

“We agree that if you bring habeas (corpus) that you can raise such challenges,” he said.

A habeas corpus claim asserts someone is unjustly imprisoned and can be used to challenge immigration detention.

Millett said the deportees had no opportunity to raise such a claim.

“Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act,” Millett said, referring to German nationals who were able to have a hearing before a board to challenge their removal when the wartime law was invoked during World War II.

The act had previously been invoked only three times in U.S. history, all during wartime.

Millett questioned how the Venezuelans on the first two deportation planes could have challenged their deportations.

“Those people on those planes on that Saturday had no opportunity to file habeas or any type of action to challenge the removal under the (Alien Enemies Act),” she said.

Lee Gelernt, American Civil Liberties Union lead attorney, said that Venezuelans who were removed were “designated (Tren de Aragua) without any advance notice, rushed to planes” and given papers that “specifically says you are not entitled to review.” He said ACLU is preparing to enter that evidence into the court record.

Jurisdiction

Walker questioned the venue where the lawsuit was filed. He asked why the challenge wasn’t brought in a Texas district court, because the original five men who brought the suit were detained there.

Gelernt said a challenge could have been brought in Texas, but that it was not clear where all the detainees subject to the proclamation were being held.

“We certainly weren’t looking just to get our five individuals from being sent to a Salvadorian prison,” Gelernt said. “This would have had to be a class. If the government is suggesting that we could have gone in there for every individual, absolutely not. We did not know who had been designated. This has all been done in secret.”

Walker also questioned how a temporary restraining order could order planes that had already left the U.S. to return.

“I’m wondering if you can point me to a district court (temporary restraining order) or injunction that survived appeal that stopped an ongoing, partially overseas national security operation in the way that this… did (to) order planes to take foreigners from international waters to the United States,” Walker asked Gelernt.

Gelernt said that the issue before the appeals court was not about the order to return deportation planes.

“The government cannot take the position that it’s an interference, by this court, on national security grounds, to give people (due) process,” he said.

New court filings revealed several immigrants on the March 15 flights were returned to the U.S. from El Salvador. They include a Nicaraguan national and eight Venezuelan women who were returned because the mega-prison is for men only.

DOJ argues notice not needed

Ensign argued that the order blocking the implementation of the Alien Enemies Act wrongly constrained the president’s wartime authority.

Millett said that the issue wasn’t about the president’s authority to use the Alien Enemies Act, but how the administration used it.

“The question is whether the implementation of this proclamation without any process to determine whether people qualify under it,” she said.

She asked Ensign if the appeals court lifting the stay would lead to a situation where “people are lined up and put on planes without notice or time to file for habeas, even though the government agrees that … they have a right to have the decision made about whether they even qualify under the proclamation?”

Ensign reserved that option for the government.

“If the (temporary restraining order) is dissolved, the government believes there would not be a limitation and that the statute does not require such notice,” he said.  

American Civil Liberties Union lead attorney Lee Gelernt holds a press conference outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after a March 21, 2025, hearing on deportation flights that occurred despite a court’s restraining order in place. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom) 

WASHINGTON — A federal judge Friday probed the U.S. Department of Justice about whether the Trump administration knowingly defied his court order to return deportation flights to the United States and questioned the president’s authority to invoke a wartime law during peacetime.

The case, which is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court, will test President Donald Trump’s authority to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and apply it to any Venezuelan nationals ages 14 and up who are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang amid his mass deportation plans.

Three deportation flights containing some Venezuelans subject to the proclamation that Trump signed last Friday were in transit when U.S. District Court Judge James Emanuel Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order to block the removals. But the administration continued sending the men to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.

The Trump administration published a highly produced video detailing the operation, but has not been forthright with answers to questions Boasberg posed about it.

“The government’s not being terribly cooperative at this point, but I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order, who ordered this and what the consequences will be,” Boasberg said Friday.

Wartime law

Boasberg also pressed the Department of Justice attorney Drew Ensign on whether the Trump administration can deport people under the Alien Enemies Act without allowing the deportees to prove they are not members or associated with the Tren de Aragua gang.

“How do they challenge that removal?” Boasberg asked.

The Alien Enemies Act allows nationals of a country deemed an enemy of the U.S. to be detained and deported without due process of law regardless of immigration status.

Boasberg also raised concerns of using the proclamation when the U.S. is not at war.

“The policy ramifications for this are incredibly troublesome,” Boasberg said of the Alien Enemies Act. “This is a long way from the heartland of the act.”

A panel of judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear oral arguments Monday afternoon on the Trump administration seeking an emergency stay on the restraining order. 

Restraining order

Boasberg asked DOJ attorney Ensign to clarify how he interpreted the oral temporary restraining order issued on March 15.

He asked Ensign if he relayed to the Trump administration that his order included returning any Venezuelans back to the U.S. who were deported under the wartime authority.

“I understood your intent, that you meant that to be effective at that time,”  Ensign said of the oral temporary restraining order.

In filings, the Department of Justice has argued that Boasberg’s oral argument was not binding because it was not written.

For nearly a week, the Department of Justice has evaded pointed questions from Boasberg about the timing of the deportation flights on March 15.

Boasberg said Thursday he would give the Trump administration until Tuesday to submit a declaration on whether the government was invoking the state-secrets privilege and a brief “showing cause why they did not violate the Court’s Temporary Restraining Orders by failing to return class members removed from the United States on the two earliest planes that departed on March 15, 2025.”

In Friday filings, Trump officials said they are currently having Cabinet-level conversations about using that privilege to block Boasberg from obtaining details about the timing of the deportation flights.

Flight location an issue

The Department of Justice has also argued that because the flights were no longer in U.S. airspace or territory when Boasberg issued the restraining order, they were not under U.S. courts’ jurisdiction.

Lead attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Lee Gelernt pushed back on that claim. He told Boasberg that some immigrants on those deportation flights to El Salvador were returned to the U.S. because of mistakes and that the El Salvadoran “government would not take them.”

He said that included someone who was not a Venezuelan national, and a woman because the mega-prison is for men only.

He said the ACLU will submit an affidavit late Friday with more details.

Gelernt said the ACLU is also questioning the type of removal for people on the third flight, even though the Trump administration said those on that flight had final orders of removal and were not subject to the Alien Enemies Act.

Gelernt argued that in immigration law, those with final orders are required to be notified what country they are being deported to. He said that was not the case with the immigrants on the third flight, which originally went to Honduras before heading to El Salvador.

“We asked the judge to clarify that with the government, because it seems very doubtful that Venezuelans had a final order that said you could be removed to El Salvador,” Gelernt said to reporters after Friday’s hearing.

The White House earlier this week said of the men on the deportation flights, 137 were alleged Tren de Aragua members and deported under the Alien Enemies Act.

Attorneys for several of the 238 Venezuelan men deported argue their clients are not members of the gang and were only targeted by immigration officials because they had tattoos and were Venezuelan nationals.  

El Salvador prison

Gelernt said that because the Trump administration is paying the government of El Salvador $6 million to imprison the men, he believes those men who were deported under the wartime law can be returned, although it would be a lengthy process.

“I think we very much think the federal court can order the U.S. to get them out, since they’re constructively in U.S. custody,” he said outside the courtroom. “The U.S. is apparently paying for it all. (El Salvador is) doing it at the behest of the United States.”

Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit that monitors human rights conditions around the world, has raised major concerns with the conditions of the prison and has noted that the group “is not aware of any detainees who have been released from that prison.”

Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian president, called this week for the men taken to the mega prison to be returned to Venezuela, calling on El Salvador president to “not be an accomplice to this kidnapping, because our boys did not commit any crime in the United States, none,” according to CNN.

“They were not brought to trial, they were not given the right to a defense, the right to due process, they were deceived, handcuffed, put on a plane, kidnapped, and sent to a concentration camp in El Salvador,” Maduro said.

Several of the men who were transferred to El Salvador’s prison initially fled Venezuela because they experienced violence from officials after they partook in political protests against the Maduro regime, according to court filings. 

President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele said hundreds of Venezuelan migrants deported from the U.S. to a prison in his country under the Alien Enemies Act would perform hard labor for up to a year, potentially longer.  In this photo, he delivers a speech during the first press conference of the year at Casa Presidencial on Jan. 14, 2025, in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — In new court briefings Thursday, attorneys for several Venezuelan immigrants say their clients either had no criminal record or had cases before an immigration judge when they were deported under the Trump administration’s wartime authority — despite a federal judge ordering the return of the flights to the United States.

Attorneys for four men who were sent to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador said their clients had two things in common: They were accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 the president invoked, and they all had tattoos.

Among those four men deported were a professional soccer player; a father whose son is a U.S. citizen; a political activist who protested the Maduro regime in Venezuela; and an asylum seeker. 

238 Venezuelans on flights

Last week, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which allowed the rapid deportation of Venezuelan nationals 14 and older who are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

“If the President can label any group as enemy aliens under the Act, and that designation is unreviewable, then there is no limit on who can be sent to a Salvadoran prison, or any limit on how long they will remain there,” the American Civil Liberties Union, which originally filed the suit, wrote in recent court briefings.

The White House confirmed 238 Venezuelans were deported and flown to El Salvador, but is refusing to answer detailed questions about the timing of the March 15 flights, after a federal judge placed a temporary restraining order that same day on use of the wartime authority.

Thursday’s filings also included sworn statements from four attorneys who had clients initially on the deportation flights heading to the prison in El Salvador, but were removed before the plane left the U.S.

In separate accounts, the four men who disembarked the plane and questioned what was happening said they were told by an immigration official they had “won the lottery” because they were not being deported that day.

The eight exhibits by attorneys came just before a Friday hearing before U.S. District Court Judge James Emanuel Boasberg in the District of Columbia, who is pressing the government for more details on the timing of the two deportation flights. 

Hard labor

The prison that the men were taken to, known as the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, has concerned human rights groups like the Human Rights Watch.

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, wrote on social media that the men deported from the U.S. to his country would perform hard labor for up to a year, potentially longer. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the U.S. government paid El Salvador $6 million to detain the men.

In a court filing with the ACLU, Juanita Goebertus, the director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, said that “the Salvadoran government has described people held in CECOT as ‘terrorists,’ and has said that they ‘will never leave.’”

“Human Rights Watch is not aware of any detainees who have been released from that prison,” she said.

Tattoos of crowns, rosary, flowers

One of the men taken to CECOT is Jerce Reyes Barrios, a professional soccer player who marched in two political demonstrations protesting the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, his attorney, Linette Tobin, wrote.

Barrios came to the U.S. in 2024 using the CBP One app, a tool the Biden administration used to help migrants make appointments with asylum officers. The Trump administration shut down the app on the president’s first day in office and have repurposed the app as a self-deportation tool.

Tobin said that Barrios, who had no criminal record in the U.S. or Venezuela, applied for asylum and had a court hearing in April.

She said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement accused Barrios of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang because of his tattoos. He has a tattoo on his arm with a soccer ball and a crown on top, with a rosary.

“DHS alleges that this tattoo is proof of gang membership,” Tobin said. “In reality, he chose this tattoo, because it is similar to the logo for his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid.”

Another attorney, Austin Thierry, said his client, E.V., fled Venezuela after being tortured by officials for participating in a protest against the regime.

Since E.V. has been in ICE detention, “his partner and infant son have struggled to meet their expenses and maintain housing,” Thierry said, adding that his client’s son is a U.S. citizen.

“EV has various tattoos, such as tattoos of anime, flowers, and animals, that he chose to get for personal and artistic reasons,” Thierry said.

“E.V. also has a tattoo of a crown, which may be why ICE falsely accused him of gang membership. However, this crown is not related to Tren de Aragua but rather, a tribute to his grandmother whose date of death appears at the base of the crown.”

Asylum cases pending

Another immigration attorney, Katherine Kim, said her client, referred to as L.G., had a pending asylum case and that ICE alleged he was associated with Tren de Aragua.

She said L.G. denied being a member and has three tattoos.

“One is a rosary, the other is his partner’s name, and the third is a rose and a clock,” she said. “None of these tattoos are related to Tren de Aragua gang membership or membership in any other gang.”

Immigration attorney Osvaldo Caro-Cruz, said his client, JABV, fled Venezuela due to political persecution and applied for asylum through the CBP One app.

“His tattoos are a Rose, a Clock and a Crown with his son’s name on it,”  Caro-Cruz wrote in a court filing. “These are common in Venezuela and bear no exclusive association with gang affiliation.”

Caro-Cruz said he was able to determine that JABV was deported to the prison in El Salvador because the president, Bukele, published a video and JABV’s brother recognized him.

Tattoo artist

Another filing was by Solanyer Michell Sarabia Gonzalez, who said he fears his younger brother was sent to El Salvador.

Both brothers have asylum cases pending. When they went to their ICE check-in appointment, the younger one, 19-year-old Anyelo Jose Sarabia, was asked about his hand tattoo by an immigration official and later detained.

Sabaria has no criminal record and is a tattoo artist.

Gonzalez said he can no longer find his brother on the ICE detainee locator.  

“I am extremely concerned about the health and safety of my little brother,” he wrote in his court filing. 

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearing on Jan. 15, 2025. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday refused to provide further details about deportation flights that were in flight when a federal judge issued an order blocking the invocation of the wartime law used to authorize the removals.

In new court filings, the Department of Justice said two deportation flights to El Salvador and Honduras were not subject to a restraining order from U.S. District Court Judge James Emanuel Boasberg because they were no longer in U.S. territory or airspace when the order was issued.

In a notice signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Justice Department would not answer further questions about those flights, contradicting Boasberg’s order late Monday calling for the administration to answer four specific questions about details of the operation.

“The Government maintains that there is no justification to order the provision of additional information, and that doing so would be inappropriate, because even accepting Plaintiffs’ account of the facts, there was no violation of the Court’s written order (since the relevant flights left U.S. airspace, and so their occupants were ‘removed,’ before the order issued), and the Court’s earlier oral statements were not independently enforceable as injunctions,” according to the notice.

“The Government stands on those arguments.”

In response to the filing, Boasberg issued a new order, giving the administration until noon Eastern on Wednesday to give those details under seal.

Specifically, he is asking what times the flights took off from the United States, when they left U.S. airspace, when they landed in their designated countries, when those immigrants being deported were subject to the Alien Enemies Act and the number of people on the flights who were subject to the Alien Enemies Act.

The Department of Justice has also argued that an oral order given by Boasberg was “not enforceable” because it was not a written order.

Fighting the judicial order

In a temporary restraining order barring President Donald Trump from invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to detain and deport any Venezuelan nationals 14 and older who are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang, Boasberg also ordered those flights carrying Venezuelan men to return to the U.S. Those men instead were taken to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.

Boasberg on Monday demanded sworn statements from the Department of Justice to determine if the Trump administration relied on the Alien Enemies Act to deport any of the Venezuelan men flown to El Salvador, which would have violated his Saturday temporary restraining order.

In the Tuesday notice signed by Bondi, the Department of Justice also argued that “the Government should not be required to disclose sensitive information bearing on national security and foreign relations.”

Another hearing before Boasberg is set for Friday afternoon.

Authority for deportations

Robert Cerna, the acting field office director for enforcement and removal operations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a signed statement to the court that the immigrants on a third deportation flight after the Saturday restraining order were not removed under the Alien Enemies Act, but under a separate final removal authority known as Title 8.

“To avoid any doubt, no one on any flight departing the United States after 7:25 PM EDT on March 15, 2025, was removed solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue,” he said.

Boasberg issued his temporary restraining order Saturday around 6:48 p.m. Eastern, according to court filings. One of the flights landed in Honduras at 7:36 p.m. Eastern and the other flight landed in El Salvador at 8:02 p.m. Eastern.

Cerna also clarified that the president signed the proclamation invoking the wartime law on Friday, but that ICE understood the proclamation went into effect after the White House published it Saturday afternoon.

Cerna said there are roughly 258 additional immigrants who would be subject to the proclamation. Of those people, Cerna said that 54 were already detained.

18th-century law

The Alien Enemies Act has only been invoked three times, all when the U.S. was at war with other countries. The most recent was during World War II, when it led to the rapid detention and internment camps of nationals from Japan, Italy and Germany.

The U.S. is not at war with another country, and Congress has not approved a declaration of war. The Trump administration has argued that by designating the Tren de Aragua gang as a terrorist group, the act can be invoked.

The White House has defended the deportation flights and has argued that it has not violated the court’s order.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Monday press briefing that the Trump administration is confident it will be successful in court.

She added that the U.S. paid El Salvador $6 million to detain the 261 men who were deported to the country.

Appeals

The president has lashed out against the temporary restraining order, even calling for the impeachment of Boasberg, along with other federal judges who have ruled against his administration.

“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!,” Trump wrote on social media.

It prompted a rare statement of rebuke from U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

The Trump administration has already appealed the temporary restraining order to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In that appeal, the Justice Department asked the appellate court to remove the case from Boasberg, taking issue with his decision to agree to a class action lawsuit, rather than apply the restraining order to the original five men in the suit.

The American Civil Liberties Union originally brought the suit with five men who are Venezuelan and were threatened “with imminent removal under” the Alien Enemies Act.

The case is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court.

President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Monday ordered the U.S. government to provide answers about details of the Trump administration’s deportation of immigrants under an 18th-century wartime law after civil rights groups alleged that the administration defied the court’s restraining order reversing the deportations.

The Department of Justice was given four directives by U.S. Judge James Emanuel Boasberg in the District of Columbia that are due in a filing by noon on Tuesday. Among the requirements is a sworn statement that the government did not rely on the 1798 Alien Enemies Act for the authority to deport any of the Venezuelan men flown to El Salvador over the weekend, which would have violated his Friday temporary restraining order.

According to the order, if “the Government takes the position that it will not provide that information to the Court under any circumstances, it must support such position, including with classified authorities if necessary.”

The American Civil Liberties Union wrote in court briefings that the government violated a court order by not turning around deportation flights headed to Honduras and El Salvador late Saturday, despite a restraining order in place hours prior to the flights’ landing.

Four directives

The Trump administration tried to dismiss the case, but Boasberg rejected the motion.

Prior to Monday’s late emergency hearing, the Department of Justice defended the Trump administration’s deportation flights, arguing in a court filing that the federal judge’s “oral directive is not enforceable as an injunction.”

At Monday’s hearing, Boasberg ordered the Department of Justice to issue a sworn declaration that after he issued a restraining order Saturday, none of the men on the deportation flights were removed on the grounds of the Alien Enemies Act.

He also wants to know when the president signed the proclamation and when it went into effect.

Boasberg also asked the Justice Department to report how many people would be subject to the act who are in the U.S. and how many of those people are in custody.

He is asking Department of Justice attorneys for the Trump administration’s “position on whether, and in what form, it will provide answers to the Court’s questions regarding the particulars of the flights,” according to the order.

President Donald Trump on Sunday afternoon posted a highly produced, dramatized video showing what appeared to be the deported migrants in uniform garb, chained, with their hair and beards forcibly shaved by armed prison guards in El Salvador. The men in the video were shoved into maximum security cells in the huge El Salvador prison known as the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo.

“Beyond the concerns raised by the government’s own letter, there has been significant media reporting that Defendants may have defied the Court’s Order,” the ACLU wrote, referring to the Trump administration.

Appeal already filed

The Trump administration has already appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and has urged that court to remove the case from Boasberg.

In a Monday filing to the appeals court, the Trump administration argued that the lower court overreached its authority.

“The Government cannot—and will not—be forced to answer sensitive questions of national security and foreign relations in a rushed posture without orderly briefing and a showing that these questions are somehow material to a live issue,” according to the filing.

The Trump administration is also appealing the lower court’s decision to allow a class action suit to include anyone who is subjected to the proclamation the president issued over the weekend. The ACLU originally brought the suit with five men who are Venezuelan and were threatened “with imminent removal under” the Alien Enemies Act.

“The district court has enjoined the President from using his statutory and constitutional authority to address what he has identified as an invasion or predatory incursion by a group undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare,” the Trump administration wrote in its Sunday appeal.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Monday press briefing that the Trump administration is confident they are “going to win in court.”

She added that the U.S. paid El Salvador $6 million to detain the 261 men who were deported to the country.

The high-profile dispute is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Saturday’s events

The administration had said in a presidential proclamation published Saturday it would be using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, last invoked during World War II, to detain and remove anyone 14 or older who is a suspected member of the Venezuelan gang, the Tren de Aragua.

In the proclamation, President Donald Trump said he will detain and deport anyone 14 and older who is a suspected member of the Tren de Aragua. There is a carve out for naturalized citizens and lawful permanent residents, or green card holders. 

“Evidence irrefutably demonstrates that (Tren de Aragua) has invaded the United States and continues to invade, attempt to invade, and threaten to invade the country; perpetrated irregular warfare within the country; and used drug trafficking as a weapon against our citizens,” according to the Trump proclamation. “As President of the United States and Commander in Chief, it is my solemn duty to protect the American people from the devastating effects of this invasion.”

To block that use of the Alien Enemies Act, the ACLU and other civil rights groups filed an emergency request before Boasberg in the District of Columbia, and a hearing was held at 5 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. Boasberg was nominated by former President Barack Obama in 2011.

Flight records and court briefing show that two U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement flights departed from Texas Saturday – one at 5:45 p.m. Eastern for El Salvador and one at 5:26 p.m. Eastern for Honduras.

Roughly an hour later, Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order and, in his order, told the government to turn around any deportation flights that were currently in the air.

“[A]ny plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States, but those people need to be returned to the United States,” Boasberg said, according to the court’s transcript. “However that’s accomplished, whether turning around a plane or not embarking anyone on the plane or those people covered by this on the plane, I leave to you. But this is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately.”

Both flights landed after the orders were given by Boasberg, ACLU argues in its court records.

A third Saturday flight left from Texas to Honduras at 7:37 p.m. Eastern, according to flight records and court briefings.

In filings to the appeals court, the Trump administration argued that the district court did not have the jurisdiction to issue the temporary restraining order and that the president has the authority to use the Alien Enemies Act.

On Sunday, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, on social media, reposted a news story about the deportation flights that had continued despite a court order.

He responded, “Oopsie… Too late.” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reposted the response from El Salvador’s president from his personal account.

Rubio has traveled to El Salvador and met with Bukele to talk about accepting deportations of nationals from other countries. In those meetings, Bukele agreed to accept “members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang” and place them in jail, according to State Department records. 

Due process concerns

U.S. immigration law already gives the authority to investigate, arrest and remove immigrants who are engaging in criminal activity or harm in the country, and the wartime authority to go after the Tren de Aragua is not needed, said Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.

She said Trump invoking the wartime authority is not about “going after people who are provably committing crimes or harming American communities.”

“It’s about going after Venezuelans without due process because this law gives the president the power to say that … they’re dangerous, and just remove them without proving anything to an independent adjudicator, without any evidence that actually underlies that determination,” she said.

Immigrants subject to the Alien Enemies Act would not have access to an immigration judge or court hearing under the law.

Saturday’s proclamation is similar to an executive order the president signed on Inauguration Day, titled Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

He previewed in his inauguration speech his intentions to designate cartels as foreign terrorist groups in order to use the Alien Enemies Act.

“By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities,” Trump said during the Jan. 20 address.

In order for the Alien Enemies Act to be invoked, an invasion by a foreign government must occur, and in the executive order relating to the cartels, the Trump administration argues that they are a foreign entity. The cartels that the Trump administration singles out in the order are the MS-13 gang and the Tren de Aragua.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has already revoked protections granted to roughly half a million Venezuelans under the Biden administration. In early February, she declined to renew Temporary Status Protections for 350,000 Venezuelans that are set to expire April 2. In her reasoning, she cited gang activity.

Ebright noted that the last time the act was invoked, during World War II, many of the Japanese, Italian and German immigrants who were detained had some form of legal status.

“I would put money on it that this proclamation is going to cover people who are lawfully present,” she said.

Historical use of Alien Enemies Act

The last time the Alien Enemies Act was invoked was after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.

But even after World War II ended in 1945, the Alien Enemies Act was still in place for several years, along with the continuation of internment camps, because Congress and the president had not formally terminated the declaration of war, Ebright said.

She said that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld then-President Harry Truman’s extended use of the Alien Enemies Act three years after World War II on the grounds that “it would be too political for the courts to intercede and say that this wartime authority had lapsed.”

“That is something that makes talking about the Alien Enemies Act and the potential for abuse very important, but it doesn’t mean that the courts truly are powerless to step in and prevent a clear abuse of the authority right,” she said.

Ebright said there’s a distinction between the Pearl Harbor attack during World War II and present day.

“Today, you don’t have anything remotely close to a wartime context,” she said. “Judges have eyes, they can see that there has not been a second Pearl Harbor perpetrated by a gang.”