Trump loses bid to vacate order against gang deportations

Erik Larson, Bloomberg News on Mar 24, 2025

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A federal judge denied a Trump administration request to throw out a temporary order barring further deportations of accused Venezuelan gang members based solely on the Alien Enemies Act, further escalating a standoff between the courts and the White House.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington ruled his temporary order will remain in effect, restricting such removals until the men are given an opportunity to challenge whether they are connected to the Tren de Aragua gang. The ruling came hours before a federal appeals court will hear arguments on the issue.

“Each vehemently denies being a member of Tren de Aragua,” the judge said in a ruling Monday. “Several in fact claim that they fled Venezuela to escape the predations of the group, and they fear grave consequences if deported solely because of the Government’s unchallenged labeling.”

The ruling is the latest development in a growing rift between the judiciary and executive branches over the extent of President Donald Trump’s power to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which applies when the United States is in a state of “declared war” or suffering an “invasion or predatory incursion.” After Boasberg issued his TROs, Trump called for the judge to be impeached, prompting a rare rebuke of the president by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

Boasberg has been critical of the government for allowing some accused gang members to be deported despite his ruling temporarily blocking them, demanding answers about when exactly the planes took off any why they didn’t turn around. In his ruling Monday, the judge said that the “most reasonable inference” is that the government “hustled people onto those planes in the hopes of evading an injunction or perhaps preventing them from requesting the habeas hearing to which the government now acknowledges they are entitled.”

Boasberg, however, said the order doesn’t prevent the Trump administration from detaining or deporting suspected members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang under the Immigration and Nationality Act as members of a foreign terrorist organization, or FTO.

“The noncitizens comprising the class are already in United States custody, and any actual Tren de Aragua member is already subject to deportation as a member of an FTO, so there is little additional harm to the public by temporarily preventing their removal,” the judge wrote.

Lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department have argued that Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act can’t be reviewed by the courts, but Boasberg said he doesn’t need to resolve that “thorny question” at this stage.

“That is because plaintiffs are likely to succeed on another equally fundamental theory: before they may be deported, they are entitled to individualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to them at all,” the judge said.