A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered the Trump administration to give more than 100 Venezuelan men it sent to a supermax prison in El Salvador earlier this year a chance to contest their deportation, the latest development after months of legal battles over the fate of the deportees.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg found that the 137 men removed to El Salvador on March 15 under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act had been “plainly deprived” of their due process rights. The Trump administration has argued the 18th century wartime law allows the government to summarily deport Venezuelans identified to be gang members, though that argument has been rejected by several federal judges. The deportees are held in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center prison, or CECOT.
Boasberg concluded that the secretive deportations to El Salvador in March had “improperly withheld” from the deportees due process rights that he said “must now be afforded to them.”
The order by Boasberg gave the Justice Department one week to say how it intends to provide the 137 Venezuelan deportees an opportunity to seek relief under the constitutional principle of habeas corpus, which allows people to challenge their detention.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“As is now clear, CECOT Class members were entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removability pursuant to the Proclamation. That process — which was improperly withheld — must now be afforded to them. Put differently, Plaintiffs’ ability to bring habeas challenges to their removal must be restored,” Boasberg wrote. The judge added that the men “must be allowed the practical opportunity to seek habeas relief that they were previously denied,” and their cases must be handled as if they had never been removed to El Salvador in the first place.
Boasberg ruled that he does not have jurisdiction over Venezuelan men who are subject to the Alien Enemies Act proclamation and are still in state or federal custody. The judge said he cannot grant them relief from his position on the bench in D.C. after the American Civil Liberties Union asked for relief for both groups of men.
The Trump administration has repeatedly said all the Venezuelan men deported to El Salvador are dangerous criminals and members of Tren de Aragua, a prison gang that the president labeled a wartime enemy and terrorist group. But a “60 Minutes” and CBS News review of the migrants’ cases found that an overwhelming majority of the men have no apparent criminal convictions or charges.
The Venezuelan migrants deported to El Salvador and imprisoned at CECOT include Andry Romero Hernandez, a gay makeup artist whom an independent journalist photographed weeping when he was transferred to the maximum-security facility.
Boasberg also expressed concerns about the government’s claims that all the deportees are gangsters, saying, “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.”
“The court correctly held that the government cannot simply wash its hands of all responsibility for these constitutional violations and leave these men to linger in a brutal prison, perhaps for the rest of their lives,” said Lee Gelernt, the ACLU lawyer leading the legal challenge against the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act.
The March 15 deportation flights at the center of the legal fight overseen by Boasberg sent roughly 240 Venezuelan men to El Salvador, alongside roughly two dozen Salvadorans accused of gang membership. According to government officials, 137 of the Venezuelans were expelled under the Alien Enemies Act, which allows deportations during a foreign invasion, while the rest were deported under regular immigration law.
Earlier this year, Boasberg blocked deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, after a challenge was brought by the ACLU on behalf of a group of Venezuelan migrants who sought to prevent their removal under the more than 200-year-old wartime law.
After an appeal of Boasberg’s order by the Trump administration, the Supreme Court in April allowed the Trump administration to restart removals under the Alien Enemies Act, but mandated that those subject to removal are entitled to some level of due process, including a notice before their deportation.
While the April Supreme Court ruling prohibited Boasberg from granting nationwide relief to those currently in state and local detention across the country, the ACLU asked him to consider the case of the men who are already in CECOT given that there are no other legal jurisdictions that apply.
In April, Boasberg found that probable cause exists to find the Trump administration in criminal contempt over what he said was its “willful disregard” of his order to turn two planes carrying the men around.
The judge said the Trump administration can remedy the breach of his order before contempt proceedings are initiated by asserting custody over the migrants who were removed in violation of it, so they can assert their right to challenge their removability. That has not happened yet, and the Trump administration has argued in both this case and the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia — who was deported due to an “administrative error” — that it does not have custody over the men, because they are technically under the control of the Salvadoran government.
President Trump and his allies have repeatedly attacked Boasberg over his handling of the case that arose after the president issued a proclamation in March invoking the Alien Enemies Act.
