Associated Press
President Donald Trump on Monday questioned the impartiality of the federal judge who blocked his plans to deport Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, levelling his criticism only hours before his administration will ask an appeals court to lift the judge’s order.
Just after midnight, President Donald Trump posted a social media message calling for Chief Judge James Boasberg to be disbarred. Trump reposted an article about Boasberg’s attendance at a legal conference that purportedly featured “anti-Trump speakers.”
The judge, meanwhile, refused Monday to throw out his original order before an appeals court hearing for the case. Boasberg ruled that the immigrants facing deportation must get an opportunity to challenge their designations as alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang. He said there is “a strong pu
“The public also has a significant stake in the Government’s compliance with the law,” the judge wrote.
Boasberg didn’t immediately decide what form a challenge should take.
The Trump administration has transferred hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law that hadn’t been invoked since World War II. Flights already were in the air on March 15 when Boasberg agreed to bar the deportations temporarily and ordered planes to return to the U.S. with the deportees. That did not happen.
The Alien Enemies Act allows noncitizens to be deported without the opportunity to go before an immigration or federal court judge. Trump issued a proclamation calling the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.
Government attorneys argued in a court filing that Boasberg’s order was an “unprecedented intrusion upon the Executive’s authority to remove dangerous aliens who pose grave threats to the American people.”
“And even if reviewable, the President’s action is lawful and based upon a long history of using war authorities against organizations connected to foreign states and national security judgments, which are not subject to judicial second guessing,” they wrote.
Civil rights attorneys who sued to stop the deportations said the “implications of the government’s position are staggering.”
“If the President can designate 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,” they wrote.
During a hearing Friday, Boasberg vowed to determine whether the government defied his oral order from the bench to turn at least two planes around. The Justice Department has said that the judge’s oral directions did not count, that only his written order needed to be followed and that it couldn’t apply to flights that had already left the U.S.
Trump and some Republican allies have called for impeaching Boasberg, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, a Democrat. In a rare statement, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
8 comments
Larry Gillis, Director-at-Large, Libertarian Party of Florida
March 24, 2025 at 11:43 am
AND SO IT BEGINS …
This confrontation between two branches of government will not end well. The Administration is relying on a 1798 law, which was drafted when our present understanding of “due process of law” was in its infancy. Due process today bears utterly no resemblance to the rough-and-ready understanding back then.
Letting laws rot-in-place like this is actually LEGISLATIVE MALPRACTICE, if you think about it. Constitutional illiterates like our incumbent President simply cannot resist the temptation to take such laws at face value and to act “under color of law”.
Stress-testing our Constitution like this is not a good idea. Vote Libertarian next time.
Wendy
March 24, 2025 at 2:39 pm
Although Congress deserves a lot of blame for the current fiasco that is our federal government, the current crisis is 100% on radical progressive judges wildly exceeding their authority and making political pronouncements not judicial rulings. BTW How many elections has the Libertarian Party won?
June Genis
March 25, 2025 at 12:12 pm
Wendy, while the LP has not won any elctions at the Federal level it has won many at more local levels insluding state legislatures. You can find information about elected
Libertarians at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_(United_States)
Peachy
March 24, 2025 at 12:08 pm
Boasborg was nominated by Obama. That’s all you need to see. Democrats allow and harbor illegals. Many of them are criminals.
Michael K
March 24, 2025 at 12:49 pm
Due process is a foundation of American justice. Any attempt to circumvent the rule of law and deny fundamental rights should be challenged. Unfortunately, the Republican-led Congress is abrogating its responsibility out of fear.
And we still have seen no proof or evidence or accounting of who has been forcibly detained and deported.
Wendy
March 24, 2025 at 2:43 pm
In case you had not noticed, criminal aliens have only the most minimal of rights as they are the ones that circumvented the rule of law. Yet another ignorant post from yet another hysterical leftist.
Michael K
March 24, 2025 at 3:06 pm
Proof?
Michael K
March 24, 2025 at 2:58 pm
Without due process, anyone can be rounded up and shipped off to a notorious prison outside of the US. We have no proof of whether those deported were gang members, convicted criminals, or here illegally. There is zero accountability. It might make good TV for those who thrill to see humiliation and cruelty, but it is deplorable – and likely illegal public policy.