Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posed on a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center CECOT with the Minister of Justice and Public Security Gustavo Villatoro in Tecoluca, El Salvador, in March 2025. The appeals court just ruled that a judge couldn’t continue a contempt of court investigation against the government for sending men there despite a court order. Photo by Tia Dufour/U.S. Department of Homeland Security | License Photo
The District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday stopped U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg from holding contempt hearings for the Trump administration after it failed to suspend flights carrying Venezuelan men to an El Salvador prison.
In April 2025, Boasberg found the “government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for [the court’s] order” after he ruled against the deportation flights conducted under the provisions of the Alien Enemies Act.
He had granted a temporary restraining order motion by attorneys for the deportees and told the Trump administration to order the planes back to the United States.
“Rather than comply with the court’s order, the government continued the hurried removal operation,” Boasberg wrote in the opinion. “Early on Sunday morning — hours after the order issued — it transferred two planeloads of passengers protected by the [temporary restraining order] into a Salvadoran mega-prison.”
The administration said Kristi Noem, then secretary of Homeland Security, ordered the flights.
The Tuesday ruling ends Boasberg’s contempt investigation.
Two of the appeals court judges said Boasberg’s efforts were a “judicial intrusion into the autonomy of a co-equal department.” They also said Boasberg wasn’t clear enough in his ruling.
The other appeals judge said the ruling would have grave consequences should an administration flout a judge’s orders in the future.
“The government has already provided the name of the responsible official [Noem], so further judicial investigation is unnecessary and therefore improper,” Judge Neomi Rao wrote in an opinion that was joined by Judge Justin Walker.
“These proceedings improperly threaten an open-ended, freewheeling inquiry into Executive Branch decision-making on matters of national security that implicate ongoing military and diplomatic initiatives. This judicial intrusion into the autonomy of a co-equal department cannot be remedied by a later appeal from a contempt conviction.”
The men who were deported were alleged to be members of the Tren De Aragua gang, which Trump designated a terrorist group. The men challenged the deportation, claiming that Trump didn’t have the authority to label them gang members and deport them.
Trump’s ability to do that has been rejected by several courts, and the Supreme Court also held that the White House had to give sufficient notice to anyone removed so they could challenge it in court.
Lawyers representing people removed under the Alien Enemies Act could ask the full D.C. Circuit to review the decision.
“The opinion is a blow to the rule of law. Our system is built on the Executive Branch, including the president, respecting court orders. In this case there is no longer any question that the Trump administration willfully violated the court’s order,” said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt, lead counsel in the case.
Judge Michelle Childs dissented from the ruling. She said that the Trump administration had not met the high bar for when appeals courts can intervene in this kind of dispute, and she warned that the majority was setting a precedent that would hurt trial courts when holding future contempt proceedings.
“Contempt of court is a public offense, and the fate of our democratic republic will depend on whether we treat it as such,” she wrote.
Justice Department whistleblower Erez Reuveni released documents that showed another department attorney, Drew Ensign, had told Boasberg he was unaware if flights would take off in the next 24 to 48 hours.
Reuveni shared texts with another Justice Department lawyer discussing what they viewed as Ensign’s lack of candor, saying he was well aware flights were happening.
“Instead of properly rejecting the current petition to end the district court’s factual inquiry, the majority has determined that no further facts are needed because, as a matter of law, the alleged contemnors just cannot have committed contempt. In so doing, the majority has stymied the district court’s inherent and statutory powers and done so in a way that will affect not only these contempt proceedings but will also echo in future proceedings against all litigants. Now, any litigant can argue, based on their preferred interpretation of a court’s order, that they did not commit contempt before contempt findings are even made,” Childs said in her dissent.
Rao and Walker also analyzed Boasberg’s verbal and written order, saying he was unclear in verbally directing the flights to be grounded or turned around while failing to make that clear in the written order.
“In fact, it did not say anything about anyone already removed. It enjoined the Government only ‘from removing’ people who had not already been removed,” Walker wrote.
Boasberg in November re-opened the investigation.
“I certainly intend to find out what happened on that day,” Boasberg said as he announced plans to restart the investigation. “This has been sitting for a long time, and I believe that justice requires me to move promptly on this.”
The flights carrying the men deported to El Salvador continued after Boasberg’s orders, and they were imprisoned there until last summer, when they were released as part of a prisoner swap with Venezuela.
This week in Washington
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks during a press conference on Tax Day and the Working Families Tax Cut outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
