There is a bit to go yet, but it is clear that someone, pretty high up in DHS or ICE. . . is going to be in contempt, and maybe jailed for a bit.
Without additional ado -- here's that muscular 46 page order -- just entered in DC by the very capable Judge Boasberg:
. . .On the evening of Saturday, March 15, 2025, this Court issued a written Temporary Restraining Order barring the Government from transferring certain individuals into foreign custody pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act. At the time the Order issued, those individuals were on planes being flown overseas, having been spirited out of the United States by the Government before they could vindicate their due-process rights by contesting their removability in a federal court, as the law requires. Trump v. J.G.G., 2025 WL 1024097, at *2 (U.S. Apr. 7, 2025) (per curiam).
Rather than comply with the Court’s Order, the Government continued the hurried removal operation. Early on Sunday morning -- hours after the Order issued -- it transferred two planeloads of passengers protected by the TRO into a Salvadoran mega-prison. . . .
The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders -- especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it. To permit such officials to freely “annul the judgments of the courts of the United States” would not just “destroy the rights acquired under those judgments”; it would make “a solemn mockery” of “the constitution itself.” United States v. Peters, 9 U.S. (5 Cranch) 115, 136 (1809) (Marshall, C.J.). . . .
One Venezuelan woman [originally on the flights] swears in a declaration that she was on one of the flights that landed in El Salvador but was flown back to the United States along with seven other women, apparently because Salvadoran authorities on the ground refused to accept any female prisoners. See ECF No. 55-1 (S.Z.F.R. Decl.), ¶¶ 1, 19–21; see also Didi Martinez, Julia Ainsley & Laura Strickler, “We Were Lied To:” Two Women the Trump Administration Tried to Send to El Salvador Prison Speak Out, NBC News (Apr. 2, 2024), https://perma.cc/F5Y6-XCG8. Her account is corroborated by a declaration from a Nicaraguan man, who avows that he was also on board one of the removal flights but was returned alongside the women because Salvadoran officials would not take custody of Central American nationals such as himself. See ECF No. 55-2 (Katiana Gonzalez Decl.), ¶¶ 1, 7–9. . . .
Defendants’ extravagant assertion of Article II power, moreover, runs headlong into the fact that courts regularly adjudicate -- and sometimes, through their equitable powers, restrain -- Executive Branch conduct abroad. Indeed, this occurs even when national-security concerns are at their apex and Article II powers robust. See, e.g., Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006) (holding Executive’s military commissions on Guantanamo Bay cannot proceed given their unlawful structure and procedures); Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008) (concluding that U.S. courts retain authority to constrain Executive action in Guantanamo Bay through writ of habeas corpus). In Doe v. Mattis, for instance, the U.S military held a dual U.S./Saudi citizen in Iraq, believing him to be a member of the Islamic State. See 928 F.3d at 3.
The district court enjoined the U.S. military from transferring him into another country’s custody without 72 hours’ notice. Id. at 3–4. After the military then provided such notice, the court enjoined the ensuing transfer on the ground that the military lacked legal authority. Id. at 4. The D.C. Circuit upheld both orders, agreeing that the military had failed to satisfy the legal preconditions for such a transfer. Id. at 4–5. That courts can enjoin U.S. officials’ overseas conduct simply reflects the fact that an injunction operates in personam, meaning that it “is directed at someone, and governs that party’s conduct.” Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 428 (2009). . . .
It concludes, thus: ". . .For the foregoing reasons, the Court will find probable cause that Defendants’ actions constitute contempt. It will provide them an opportunity to purge such contempt. If they opt not to do so, the Court will proceed to identify the contemnor(s) and refer the matter for prosecution. A separate Order so stating will issue this day. . . ."
नमस्ते
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