Trump Administration at Risk of Being Held in Criminal Contempt Over Deportation Flights

A federal judge has found that “probable cause exists” to hold the Trump administration in “criminal contempt” for carrying out deportation flights of illegal aliens under the Alien Enemies Act. 

Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on March 15 issued a temporary restraining order barring the U.S. from using the Alien Enemies Act to rapidly deport illegal aliens.  

“Rather than comply with the court’s order, the government continued the hurried removal operation,” Boasberg wrote in an order Wednesday, adding that only hours after the court issued the restraining order, the Trump administration sent two planeloads full of illegal aliens to El Salvador.  

The “court ultimately determines that the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its order,” Boasberg wrote.  

The Trump administration now has the opportunity to comply with the court order, but if it refuses to do so, Boasberg says, “the court will proceed to identify the contemnor(s) and refer the matter for prosecution.” 

The Trump administration plans “to seek immediate appellate relief,” Steven Cheung, White House communications director, wrote on X Wednesday in response to the news.

“The President is 100% committed to ensuring that terrorists and criminal illegal migrants are no longer a threat to Americans and their communities across the country,” Cheung added.

After designating the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, the White House announced in March that Trump would use the powers of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove members of the gang from America. Illegal aliens, who the Trump administration says are Tren de Aragua gang members, were then loaded onto airplanes and deported to a prison in El Salvador.   

In a narrow 5-4 decision last week, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could resume deportations of Venezuelan criminal illegal aliens under the Alien Enemies Act.   

The decisions did not address the constitutionality of using the Alien Enemies Act to deport members of the Tren de Aragua. Instead, the court said in its opinion that “judicial review” was requested in the wrong court. The attorneys for the illegal alien should have filed their lawsuit against the deportations in Texas, where the illegal aliens were being held, instead of filing in Washington, D.C., the court found.  

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