President Donald Trump’s administration transferred hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime declaration despite a federal judge’s order temporarily barring the deportation as the flights were already in the air.
Several legal experts said that the episode represents a significant and concerning escalation in the Trump administration’s resistance to the judiciary.
Trump called for the removal of the judge who blocked the deportation of Venezuelan gang members after administration’s lawyers refused to answer some questions in court.
Trump was also swatted down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit as he attempted to neutralize a ruling by another federal judge in a case involving mass firings of probationary employees by the Office of Personnel and Management and acting OPM director Charles Ezell.
On Saturday night, District Judge James E. Boasberg ordered the administration not to deport anyone in its custody over the newly-invoked Alien Enemies Act, which has only been used three times before in U.S. history, all during congressionally-declared wars.
Trump issued a proclamation that the 1798 law was newly in effect due to what he claimed was an invasion by the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, then claimed the judicial order came too late to the stop the deportations.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts pushed back against Trump’s call to impeach Judge James E. Boasberg, chief judge of the Federal District Court in DC, whose ruling conflicted with his administration’s deportation plans.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” said Roberts, who significantly influenced several decisions that emboldened and enabled Trump – including both Citizens United and last year’s startling ruling that gave presidents extensive immunity from criminal prosecution– which ushered an increasingly authoritarian use of power. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
Trump hurled insults at Boasberg after the judge conducted a “fact-finding” hearing on Monday over whether the administration knowingly violated a court order.
“As Trump fights with federal courts over his draconian deportation policy, this episode marks a troubling escalation in the Republican administration’s assault on the rule of law,” said New Jersey Democrat Lisa McCormick. “Rather than draining the swamp, Republicans are busy building a Trump Tower of tyranny, arrogance, corruption and unconstitutional lawlessness.”
Trump’s unconstitutional governance is corrupt,” said McCormick. “His repeated attacks on the media, his calls for political retribution against his critics, and his attempts to undermine free and fair elections signal an erosion of the principles that have sustained American democracy for over two centuries.”
“When the president of the United States repeatedly ignores the Constitution with impunity, the nation moves closer to becoming a dictatorship, where power is consolidated in the hands of one man and one party, with no regard for the rights and freedoms of the people,” said McCormick. “The minority of Americans who might like what he is doing must take another look at the way he is doing it and consider how they will feel when a liberal Democrat succeeds this conservative criminal in the White House.”
Told there were plans in the air headed to El Salvador, which has agreed to house deported migrants in a notorious prison, Boasberg said he, and the government, needed to move fast.
“You shall inform your clients of this immediately, and that any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States,” Boasberg told the government’s lawyer Saturday night.
According to the papers filed in court, two planes that took off from Texas’ detention facility when the hearing started more than an hour earlier were in the air at that point, and they apparently continued to El Salvador.
A third plane apparently took off after the hearing and Boasberg’s written order was formally published at 7:26 pm eastern time.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “the administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order” but she also claimed there’s a difference between a written and verbal order, that it was not “lawful” and it is being appealed.
“Ever since Roberts became chief justice in 2005, two of his main objectives have been clear: to boost corporate America and to help Republicans consolidate power,” wrote journalist Steven Greenhouse. “Roberts didn’t seem to mind that several of his key court rulings, especially Citizens United, were turning the US into a plutocracy, with the rich and corporations having huge, undue power. But he must feel very uncomfortable that second-term Trump is quickly transforming the US into an authoritarian state, as Trump and Elon Musk steamroll the constitution and federal law while the president seeks retribution against perceived enemies and fails to fully comply with several judicial decisions.”
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