The justices who dissented from Tuesday’s ruling blocked Justice James Boasberg’s decision because it “not only affects these contempt actions, but will also impact future litigation against all litigants.”
Federal judge blocks deportation flights for immigrant children
A federal judge has temporarily blocked the deportation of hundreds of unaccompanied immigrant children from Guatemala for at least two weeks.
Fox – Seattle
April 14 (Reuters) – Following a victory for Donald Trump, a U.S. appeals court on Tuesday blocked a judge from investigating whether the Republican presidential administration intentionally violated a judicial order to halt deportation flights of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador.
In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit faulted U.S. District Judge James Boasberg for his standoff with administration officials over limits on presidential power.
The D.C. Circuit ruled that Boasberg violated “executive autonomy” by requiring administration officials to testify under oath to determine whether he intentionally defied a March 2025 court order to turn back a plane that was removing Venezuelans from the United States.
“The district court proposes to examine the executive branch’s high-level deliberations on national security and foreign affairs matters,” Circuit Judge Neomi Rao wrote, referring to Boasberg.
But Boasberg’s investigation, known as a contempt action, was a “clear abuse of discretion,” Rao wrote. Such criminal contempt proceedings may lead to fines or other forms of censure.
Rao was joined in Tuesday’s ruling by Circuit Judge Justin Walker, with Circuit Judge J. Michelle Childs dissenting. Both Mr. Rao and Mr. Walker are President Trump’s judicial appointees. Mr. Childs was appointed by former Democratic President Joe Biden.
The dispute arose as part of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a Venezuelan man who was deported by the Trump administration under the Alien Enemies Act, with the plaintiffs alleging that the administration committed illegal acts on deportation flights.
This 1798 law, invoked rarely in U.S. history, gives the president broad powers to detain and deport nationals of countries at war with the United States or that begin an invasion of U.S. territory.
The same Judiciary Committee temporarily stayed Boasberg’s contempt case in December while it considered the matter.
Boasberg has ruled against the Trump administration in multiple cases. The president has called the judge a “radical left-wing lunatic” as well as a “troublemaker and agitator.”
The Venezuelan men at the center of the case were released from prison in El Salvador last summer and returned to Venezuela as part of a U.S.-brokered prisoner exchange. The United States accused the men of being gang members. Lawyers and family dispute this claim.
Boasberg concluded that the government appeared to have acted in “malice” by hastily assembling three deportation flights while he was pursuing emergency court proceedings to assess the legality of the effort.
The judge called testimony from a senior Justice Department lawyer and a former whistleblower lawyer.
Childs said in his dissenting opinion Tuesday that Boasberg is “simply trying to understand the events of one weekend in March, including actions that may have led to a willful violation of one of the judge’s orders.”
Mr. Childs said Tuesday’s ruling prevented Mr. Boasberg from “not only impacting these contempt actions, but will also impact future litigation against all litigants.”
ACLU attorney Lee Geraint said in a statement that the U.S. judicial system “cannot tolerate the executive branch’s willful violation of court orders, much less the orders that led to the horrific abuse and torture of dozens of men in El Salvador’s notorious concentration camps.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche wrote in the X that the ruling “should end Judge Boasberg’s year-long campaign against hard-working Justice Department prosecutors doing the work of combating illegal immigration.”
