Federal Judge in Deportation Case Finds Probable Cause To Hold the Trump Administration in Contempt
In an opinion issued on Wednesday, a federal judge found that the evidence “strongly support[s]” the conclusion that the Trump administration “willfully disobeyed” a March 15 order temporarily barring the removal of suspected Venezuelan gang members as “alien enemies.” James Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, says the government’s actions “demonstrate a willful disregard” for that order, “sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.”
Boasberg’s temporary restraining order (TRO) in J.G.G. v. Trump initially applied to five named plaintiffs threatened with immediate deportation under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA). Later that day, he expanded the TRO to cover anyone subject to removal under President Donald Trump’s March 15 proclamation invoking the AEA against members of the Venezuealan gang Tren de Aragua. Although the Supreme Court subsequently vacated the TRO, Boasberg says, that does not affect his contempt inquiry because “it is a foundational legal precept that every judicial order ‘must be obeyed’—no matter how ‘erroneous’ it ‘may be’—until a court reverses it.”
The Supreme Court concluded that the plaintiffs should have filed habeas corpus petitions in Texas, where they were detained, rather than seeking relief under the Administrative Procedure Act in the District of Columbia. But the Court’s “later determination that the TRO suffered from a legal defect,” Boasberg says, “does not excuse the Government’s violation.”
As Boasberg sees it, that violation reflects the government’s determination to avoid judicial review. In early March, weeks before Trump issued his proclamation, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “interrogated Venezuelans in its custody about alleged membership in Tren de Aragua and transferred many of those it deemed gang members to El Valle Detention Facility, located outside Harlingen, Texas, not far from the Mexico border,” Boasberg notes. The reason for those transfers became clear early in the morning on March 15, a Saturday, when DHS “reportedly loaded scores of Venezuelans onto buses, drove them to a nearby airport, and began putting them onto three planes.”
This happened hours before Trump published his proclamation, which implausibly averred that Tren de Aragua qualifies as a “foreign nation or government” and that its criminal activities within the United States amount to an “invasion or predatory incursion.” In Trump’s view, that counterintutive interpretation of the AEA gave him broad discretion to peremptorily deport any suspected member of the gang.
“As the planes sat on the tarmac, officials refused to answer the deportees’ questions about where they would be taken,” Boasberg writes. The detainees on those planes included the five named plaintiffs in J.G.G. v. Trump, whose attorneys filed suit at 1:12 a.m., apparently after “catching wind of the impending Proclamation.” They sought a TRO blocking their clients’ removal, arguing that Trump was misconstruing key terms in the AEA and that the plaintiffs had been erroneously identified as Tren de Aragua members.
Around 8 a.m., Boasberg learned that he had been randomly assigned to the case. At 9:40 a.m., after the plaintiffs’ lawyers told him at least one of their clients “was reportedly already aboard a removal flight,” Boasberg issued a TRO in light of the “exigent circumstances” to “freeze in place the status quo until a hearing could be held.” The government’s lawyers confirmed that the TRO “ha[d] been disseminated to the relevant executive branch agencies.” As a result, several of the named plaintiffs “were abruptly removed from planes,
Article from Reason.com
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