Latest news with #JudgeBoasberg
Fox News
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Appeals court grants Trump short-term win over Boasberg in immigration ruling
A U.S. appeals court agreed to pause a lower court order requiring the Trump administration to provide due process to hundreds of Venezuelan migrants deported from the U.S. to El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act in a near-term victory for the Trump administration. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted the Justice Department's request for an administrative stay, putting on hold a lower court order handed down last week by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg. Last Wednesday, Boasberg ruled that the migrants deported solely on the basis of the Alien Enemies Act immigration law did not have prior notice of their removals or the ability to challenge their removals in court, in a violation of due process. He ordered the Trump administration to provide migrants deported under the law the opportunity to seek habeas relief, and the opportunity to challenge their alleged gang member status that the administration had pointed to as the basis for their removal. Boasberg had given the Trump administration through Wednesday to submit to the court plans for how it would go about providing habeas relief to the plaintiffs in CECOT, the maximum security prison in El Salvador. This week, lawyers for the Trump administration filed an emergency motion to stay the ruling in both the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Tuesday, one day before that plan was due, seeking additional time to respond to the underlying merits of Boasberg's ruling. Justice Department officials argued that Boasberg did not have jurisdiction in the case, as the migrants are detained in El Salvador, and said his order interfered "with the president's removal of dangerous criminal aliens from the United States." Boasberg's final order last week did not attempt to determine who had jurisdiction. Instead, he set the matter aside, and said the individuals could remain in custody at CECOT, so long as the government submitted plans to the court for how they would be provided a chance to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act. The Trump administration still took umbrage with that ruling, which it blasted earlier this week in their appeal as "unprecedented, baseless and constitutionally offensive." "The district court's increasingly fantastical injunctions continue to threaten serious harm to the government's national-security and foreign-affairs interests," they told the circuit court. The court "correctly ruled that the United States lacks constructive custody over the aliens held at CECOT and therefore that this Court lacks jurisdiction over their habeas claims," attorneys for the Justice Department said in their motion. "That should have been the end of this case." That order sparked fierce backlash from senior Trump officials, who have blasted Bosaberg and other federal judges who have ruled in ways unfavorable to them as "activist judges." Boasberg, however, was the first federal judge to try to block Trump's attempt to use the law to summarily deport certain migrants to El Salvador earlier this year, putting him squarely in the crosshairs of the Trump administration. On March 15, he granted a temporary restraining order attempting to block the first wave of deportation flights to El Salvador, and ordered the administration to "immediately" return to the U.S. all planes that had already departed. That did not happen, however, and the planes landed hours later in El Salvador. In the months since, Boasberg attempted to hold various fact-finding hearings to determine who knew what, and when, about the flights. He later found probable cause to hold the administration in contempt of the court, citing the government's "willful disregard" for his March 15 emergency order, though those proceedings were later halted by a federal appeals court.
New York Times
04-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Judge Orders Trump Administration to Take Steps to Give Due Process to Deported Migrants
A federal judge in Washington ordered the Trump administration on Wednesday to take steps toward giving nearly 140 Venezuelan immigrants who were deported to El Salvador in March under a rarely invoked wartime law the due process that they had been denied. In a sweeping and at times outraged opinion, the judge, James E. Boasberg, compared the expelled men to characters in a Kafka novel. Judge Boasberg also asserted that they were likely to prevail in their claims that President Trump had treated them unfairly by deporting them without hearings to a brutal Salvadoran prison under the expansive powers of the wartime statute, known as the Alien Enemies Act. Judge Boasberg did not weigh in on the question of whether Mr. Trump had invoked the act lawfully when he expelled the men, who are accused of being members of the street gang Tren de Aragua, to the prison in El Salvador on March 15. He simply asserted that the White House had stripped them of their rights by not allowing them to contest their deportations before they were flown into the custody of jailers at the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center, also known as CECOT. 'Perhaps the president lawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act,' Judge Boasberg wrote. 'Perhaps, moreover, defendants are correct that plaintiffs are gang members. But — and 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.' Instead, Judge Boasberg continued, Trump officials 'spirited away planeloads of people before any such challenge could be made. 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.' The 69-page ruling by Judge Boasberg was the latest flashpoint in a monthslong legal battle between the American Civil Liberties Union, which has been defending the Venezuelan men, and administration officials, who have sought time and again to use the Alien Enemies Act to deport people accused of belonging to Tren de Aragua with as little friction as possible. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Wall Street Journal
04-06-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Migrants Sent to El Salvador Prison Can Challenge Deportations, Judge Rules
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration must allow migrants it shipped to a notorious Salvadoran prison an opportunity to challenge their removal from the U.S. The ruling from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington tees up another potential showdown with the administration over its use of a wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to speed up mass deportations of alleged gang members with minimal legal process.
The Guardian
27-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
A hidden measure in the Republican budget bill would crown Trump king
If enacted, Donald Trump's Big Ugly Bill as it emerged on Thursday from the House of Representatives would result in the largest redistribution of income and wealth in American history – from the poor and working class to the rich. Hidden within the bill is also a provision that would allow Trump to crown himself king. For months now, Trump has been trying to act like a king by ignoring court rulings against him. The supreme court has told Trump to 'facilitate' the return of Kilmar Ábrego García, a legal resident of the United States who even the Trump regime admits was erroneously sent to a brutal prison in El Salvador. Trump has done nothing. Lower federal courts have ordered him to stop deporting migrants without giving them a chance to know the charges against them and have the charges and evidence reviewed by a neutral judge or magistrate – the minimum of due process. Again, nothing. Judge James Boasberg, chief judge of the federal district court for the District of Columbia, issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump regime from flying individuals to the prison in El Salvador without due process. Judge Boasberg has found that the Trump regime has willfully disregarded his order. Is there anything that the courts can do in response to Trump's open defiance of judges and justices? They have only one power to make their orders stick. They can hold federal officials in contempt, and enforce such contempt citations by fining or jailing them. It's a radical remedy, rarely used. But several federal judges are at their wits' end. Boasberg said that if Trump's legal team does not give the dozens of Venezuelan men sent to the Salvadoran prison a chance to legally challenge their removal, he'll begin contempt proceedings against the administration. In a separate case, the US district court judge Paula Xinis has demanded that the Trump administration explain why it is not complying with the supreme court order to 'facilitate' the release of Ábrego García. Xinis has even questioned whether the administration intends to comply with the order at all, citing a statement from homeland security chief Kristi Noem that Ábrego García 'will never be allowed to return to the United States'. According to Xinis, 'That sounds to me like an admission. That's about as clear as it can get.' So what's the next step? Will the supreme court and lower courts hold the administration in contempt and enforce the contempt citations? Trump and his Republican stooges in Congress apparently anticipated this. Hidden inside their Big Ugly Bill is a provision intended to block the courts from using contempt to enforce its orders. It reads: 'No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued … ' Translated: no federal court may enforce a contempt citation. The measure would make most existing injunctions – in antitrust cases, police reform cases, school desegregation cases and others – unenforceable. Its only purpose is to weaken the power of the federal courts. As Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Berkeley School of Law dean and distinguished professor of law, notes, this provision would eliminate any restraint on Trump. 'Without the contempt power, judicial orders are meaningless and can be ignored. There is no way to understand this except as a way to keep the Trump administration from being restrained when it violates the Constitution or otherwise breaks the law … 'This would be a stunning restriction on the power of the federal courts. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the contempt power is integral to the authority of the federal courts. Without the ability to enforce judicial orders, they are rendered mere advisory opinions which parties are free to disregard.' In other words, with this single measure, Trump will have crowned himself king. If it is enacted, no Congress and no court could stop him. Even if a future Congress were to try, it could not do so without the power of the courts to enforce their hearings, investigations, subpoenas and laws. The gross unfairness of Trump's Big Ugly Bill is bad enough. It would worsen the nation's already near-record inequalities of income and wealth. But the provision inside the bill that neuters the federal courts is even worse. It would remove the last remaining constraint on Trump, and thereby effectively end American democracy. Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How Trump's clash with the courts is brewing into an 'all-out war'
Arresting judges. Threatening their impeachment. Routinely slamming them on social media and trying to go around them completely. President Donald Trump and his allies have led an intense pressure campaign on the judiciary four months into his administration. Both sides of the political spectrum are using the term constitutional crisis. 'It's an all-out war on the lower courts,' said former federal Judge John Jones III, who was appointed by President George W. Bush. More: 'Spaghetti against the wall?' Trump tests legal strategies as judges block his policies As the clash becomes a defining moment in the president's second term, conservative activists are pushing Congress to rein in federal judges and pressing Trump to intensify his fight with the courts. The Article III Project, a Trump-aligned group, arranged 164,000 phone calls, emails and social media messages to members of Congress in recent weeks urging lawmakers to back Trump in this judiciary fight. They called for impeaching Judge James Boasberg - one of the federal judges who has drawn MAGA's ire - after he ordered a temporary halt to Trump's effort to deport some immigrants. They also want lawmakers to cut the federal budget for the judiciary by $2 billion after Judge Amir Ali ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze that amount of foreign aid. The group is supporting bills introduced by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, aimed at stopping federal district judges from issuing nationwide court orders, which have blocked some of Trump's policies. Mike Davis, a former Republican Senate aide and the Article III Project's founder and leader, said the legislation sends a message to Chief Justice John Roberts as the Supreme Court weighs taking a position on the injunctions. Issa's bill has cleared the House, while Grassley's has yet to advance. Related: Called out by Trump for how he leads the Supreme Court, John Roberts is fine keeping a low profile "It's really effective," Davis said. "When you talk about these legislative reforms it scares the hell out of the chief justice.' Pizzas have been sent anonymously to the homes of judges and their relatives, prompting judges to raise concerns about apparent intimidation tactics. In his year-end report in December, Roberts warned that the court's independence is under threat from violence. More: Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts: Courts' independence under threat from violence Activists on the right are adopting some of the language being employed by Trump critics about an impending constitutional crisis, but with a very different meaning: opponents say Trump threatens the Constitution's separation of powers by ignoring court rulings, while Trump supporters say judges are usurping the president's rightful executive authority. Both argue that the nation is at a perilous moment. More: Kamala Harris doesn't hold back in sharp rebuke of Trump's first 100 days ' Steve Bannon − the president's former White House chief strategist − is predicting an explosive summer of crisis with the judicial battle at the center, saying on his podcast recently that the nation is approaching "a cataclysmic' moment. Many of Trump's critics agree, but believe it's a crisis of Trump and the right's own making. "Some allies of the administration are inviting the constitutional crisis... because they want to enfeeble our judiciary and destroy our system of checks and balances," said Gregg Nunziata, an aide for Secretary of State Marco Rubio when he was in the Senate and now the executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law, a group founded by conservative legal figures from previous Republican administrations. Trump has pushed the boundaries of executive power during his first four months in office with aggressive moves that are drawing legal challenges, including shuttering whole federal agencies, mass layoffs of federal workers, firing members of independent board and taking dramatic steps to deport undocumented immigrants. He also has invoked a 1798 wartime law to more quickly whisk people out of the country. Trump's actions have sparked nearly 250 legal challenges so far. The court cases have resulted in at least 25 nationwide injunctions through late April temporarily halting Trump's actions, according to the Congressional Research Service. More: Dismantling agencies and firing workers: How Trump is redefining relations with Congress and courts Frustrated with unfavorable court decisions, the administration has taken an increasingly hostile stance to the federal bench. Trump complained in a May 11 social media post about a 'radicalized and incompetent Court System.' 'The American people resoundingly voted to enforce our immigration laws and mass deport terrorist illegal aliens," said White House spokesman Kush Desai. "Despite what activist judges have to say, the Trump administration is legally using every lever of authority granted to the executive branch by the Constitution and Congress to deliver on this mandate.' The clash with the courts has sparked talk of a breakdown in the constitutional order. After the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to "facilitate" the return of a Maryland resident wrongly deported to El Salvador and the administration continued to resist bringing him back, U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-California, declared: "The constitutional crisis is here. President Trump is disobeying lawful court orders." Bannon talked in an NPR interview about a "constitutional crisis that we're hurtling to." Trump and allies such as Davis have complained that the judges ruling against him are left wing partisans. "Once judges take off their judicial robes and enter the political arena and throw political punches, they should expect powerful political counter punches," Davis said. Yet some of the president's biggest legal setbacks have come from Republican-appointed judges, including multiple judges appointed by Trump. Judge Fernando Rodriguez of the Southern District of Texas is a Trump appointee who ruled against him on using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport certain migrants. Another Trump appointee, Judge Trevor McFadden with the D.C. District, ruled last month that the Trump administration must reinstate access to presidential events for the Associated Press news agency, which had been barred because it continued to use the term "Gulf of Mexico" instead of Gulf of America in its coverage. More: Judge lifts Trump restrictions on AP while lawsuit proceeds over 'Gulf of Mexico' Jones, who had a lifetime appointment to serve as a federal judge beginning in 2002 until he left to become president of Dickinson College in 2021, called the rhetoric directed at judges by the Trump administration "abominable... and entirely inappropriate." "It absolutely misrepresents the way the judges decide cases," he said. "And unfortunately, many people are listening to this and and they're getting a completely mistaken impression of how judges do their jobs." One of the biggest points of contention has been due process rights, which are guaranteed under the Constitution's Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. They prohibit the federal and state governments from depriving any person 'of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' The same rights American citizens have to contest government actions against them in court extend to undocumented immigrants facing detention and deportation. Trump came into office promising mass deportations and has moved aggressively, including invoking the Alien Enemies Act, which allows for the targeting of certain immigrants "without a hearing and based only on their country of birth or citizenship," according to the Brennan Center for Justice. More: Trump has cracked down on immigration and the border. At what cost? Courts have balked at his tactics. In the most high-profile case, the Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration must 'facilitate' the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident wrongly sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador. The Supreme Court on May 16 also temporarily blocked the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to more quickly deport a group migrants held in Texas, sending the case back to the appeals court to decide the merits of whether the president's use of the legislation is lawful, and if so what process should be used to remove people. The administration hasn't brought Abrego Garcia back, and Trump has expressed frustration with the judiciary's insistence on due process. He lashed out after the latest Supreme Court ruling, writing on social media that the court "is not allowing me to do what I was elected to do." Trump Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller brought up the debate on May 9 when he said the administration is investigating suspending habeas due process rights, which only is allowed by the Constitution to preserve public safety during 'Rebellion or Invasion.' 'It's an option we're actively looking at,' Miller said. 'Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.' Conservative media figure Rogan O'Handley told USA TODAY he saw online commentary about suspending habeas corpus and began promoting it to the 2.2 million followers of his @DC_Draino X handle. He said he was dismayed by the judicial rulings against Trump's immigration agenda and seized on the idea to 'get around' the courts. 'We had to step up the intensity of our tactics,' he said. More: Trump administration floats suspending habeas corpus: What's that? O'Handley went on Bannon's podcast April 22 to promote suspending habeas. He was invited to join the White House press briefing on April 28 and asked a question about it. Two days later, on April 30, Trump was asked during a Cabinet meeting about his administration's planned response to the rash of nationwide injunctions against his deportation efforts and seemed to allude to suspending habeas. The idea – last done in Hawaii in 1941 after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor – highlights how the Trump administration is determined to push through any legal or constitutional obstacle to its deportation plans. Among Trump's biggest obstacles so far during the second term is the judiciary, which repeatedly has blocked some of his actions, calling his methods unlawful and drawing his ire. 'We need judges that are not going to be demanding trials for every single illegal immigrant," Trump told reporters recently on Air Force One. "We have millions of people that have come in here illegally, and we can't have a trial for every single person.' Immigration cases don't go before a jury, but instead are decided solely by an immigration judge. Miller has complained about a 'judicial coup' while Bannon, the podcaster and White House chief strategist during Trump's first administration, says there is a 'judicial insurrection.' The conflict has been brewing for months. Trump said March 18 on social media that a federal judge who ruled against him in an immigration case should be impeached, drawing a rare rebuke from Roberts, the chief justice of the United States and another Bush appointee. 'For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,' Roberts said in March. Tensions have only escalated. On April 25 federal authorities announced charges against a Wisconsin judge and former New Mexico judge, accusing them of hampering immigration enforcement efforts. Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan pleaded not guilty May 15. On May 22, the House passed Trump's sweeping tax legislation and included language inside the more than 1,100-page measure that could protect the Trump administration if a judge determined officials violated a court order. The language limits a judge's ability to hold someone in contempt of court if they "fail to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order." Constitutional scholars told USA TODAY the Trump administration can't suspend habeas corpus without congressional approval. 'If President Trump were to unilaterally suspend habeas corpus that's flagrantly unconstitutional,' said University of North Carolina School of Law professor Michael Gerhardt. Duke Law Professor H. Jefferson Powell, a former deputy solicitor general during Democratic President Bill Clinton's administration, said 'the standard position of the vast majority of constitutional lawyers is that Congress alone' can suspend habeas corpus. 'This is not a close call,' he said. More: Judge finds Trump administration disregarded order on Venezuelan deportations Any attempt to suspend due process rights would be a shocking move, the equivalent of a 'legal earthquake,' said Jones. Miller's comments added to the growing alarm among those concerned the Trump administration is threatening the rule of law and a constitutional crisis. Judges have reprimanded the Trump administration for not following their rulings. Boasberg found probable cause last month to hold the administration in contempt for "deliberately and gleefully" violating one of his orders. And Judge Brian Murphy with the Federal District Court in Boston ruled May 21 that the Trump administration "unquestionably" violated his order not to deport people to countries that are not their own without giving them an opportunity to contest the move. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a May 22 press briefing that the "administration has complied with all court orders," slammed Murphy's ruling and complained about "radical" judges. Murphy is "undermining our immigration system, undermining our foreign policy and our national security," Leavitt said. Jones said the administration is playing 'games with the lower courts' but the real sign of a constitutional crisis would be if the Supreme Court sets a 'bright line' that the Trump administration disregards. "We're on the verge, maybe, of that," he said. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump's clash with judges escalates to 'all-out war'
