Those who oppose the Trump administration’s deportation of suspected criminals to international maximum-security prisons are seeking every legal recourse possible against the White House.
The same U.S. federal judge who ordered the administration to pause the mass deportation of alleged Venezuelan and Salvadoran gang members last March has now threatened an investigation of contempt against President Donald Trump for sending the deportees to the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism, or CECOT, a mega-prison an hour out of El Salvador’s capital.
Judge James E. Boasberg is holding the Trump administration under criminal disobedience for not following his orders to turn over the three planeloads of nearly 300 alleged criminals a month ago. And if further action isn’t taken to “purge” the administrative worker who defied him, “the Court will proceed to identify the individual(s) responsible for the contumacious conduct by determining whose ‘specific act or omission’ caused the noncompliance,” per his 46-page filing.
“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,” Boasberg added.
Steven Cheung, White House Director of Communications, posted on social media that the Trump administration plans to appeal Boasberg’s actions.
“We plan to seek immediate appellate relief. 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 wrote.
The Department of Justice told Newsweek via email that Boasberg is going beyond his jurisdiction and that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week further proves that:
“The Supreme Court ruled that Judge Boasberg has no right to seize control of the President’s authority to conduct foreign policy — he should have never issued his order. His underhanded attempt to maintain power over this case is a judicial power grab that the Department of Justice will fight by all means necessary.”
The unanimous unsigned order filed by the Supreme Court also ordered the Trump administration to ‘facilitate’ the return of one of the men deported on March 15, Maryland man Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia.
Maryland Sen. travels to El Salvador prison
A husband and father of three, Abrego Garcia unlawfully entered the U.S. from El Salvador in 2011 and was among the alleged MS-13 gang members sent to CECOT.
The Trump administration has remained firm in its decision to deport him, despite heavy legal opposition taken to have him returned, and their admission of his removal from the U.S. was an “administrative error.” Attorney General Pam Bondi said during a meeting Monday with President Trump and the El Salvador President Nayib Bukele that Abrego Garcia was in the U.S. illegally and that an immigration court and appellate immigration court in 2019 each ruled him a gang member.
“Just this morning it was revealed through Maryland court documents that Abrego Garcia’s wife petitioned for an order of protection against him for two instances of domestic violence in May of 2021,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press conference Wednesday holding up the order.
“The court ordered that the respondent committed the following acts of abuse once in May of 2021 assault in any degree and on May 4th of 2021 he punched and scratched his, wife ripped off her shirt, and grabbed and bruised her. This is from a court in Maryland.”
The Trump administration has said that even if he is brought back to the states, Abrego Garcia would be detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and deported to another country.
“He will never live in the United States of America again,” Leavitt confirmed again Wednesday. But that hasn’t stopped efforts to have him returned.
Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, flew to El Salvador on Wednesday in an attempt to return Abrego Garcia back to the states. He told reporters that he was denied permission to visit or speak with Abrego Garcia who is currently detained in CECOT but did speak with El Salvador’s Vice President Félix Ulloa.
Van Hollen asked the Vice President why Abrego Garcia was being detained if both the U.S. and El Salvador have failed to produce evidence that he is an MS-13 gang member. According to Axios, “His answer was that the Trump administration is paying El Salvador, the government of El Salvador, to keep him at CECOT,” Van Hollen said.
“I’m asking President Bukele under his authority as president of El Salvador to do the right thing and allow Mr. Abrego Garcia to walk out of a prison — a man who’s charged with no crime, convicted of no crime and who was illegally abducted from the United States,” per The New York Times.
On Monday, Bukele sat with Trump and confirmed he has no intention of returning Abrego Garcia back to the U.S.
“Do I smuggle him into the United States? Of course, I’m not going to do it,” Bukele said. “It’s like, I mean the question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?”
Bukele continued: “We’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country. We just turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country in the Western Hemisphere, and you want us to go back into releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world? That’s not going to happen.”