A federal judge has scheduled a hearing at 5 PM et on Monday to address the issue of whether the Trump administration violated a court order when he delivered more than 200 alleged gang members to the Salvadoras authorities during the weekend.
Shortly before the scheduled start time of the hearing, the judge, James Boasberg, denied a request from the Attorney General Pam Bondi and the attached attorney general Todd Blanche to cancel the hearing.
The administration of President Donald Trump made a decision calculated on Saturday to ignore the judge’s directive to change around two flights containing hundreds of alleged members of Venezuelan gangs, sources familiar with the matter to ABC News said.
Boasberg’s verbal instructions accompanied a temporary restriction order that blocked the Trump administration to deport non -citizens currently in custody, which the judge issued less than two hours after Trump tried to invoke the law of the eighteenth century to deport the alleged members of the Venezuelan group of Aragua.
Boasberg, in his temporary restriction order, explicitly told the government to deliver any plane that had already left the country if they were still in the air. However, the sources said that the main lawyers and administration officials made the determination that, since the flights were in the international waters, the order of Boasberg did not apply, and the planes were not changed.
The DAJ lawyers argued in their presentation of the court on Monday that the Court must vacate the hearing because they do not believe they violated the orders of the Court, and are not prepared to provide more operational data or national security details to the plaintiffs or the public.
Bondi, Blanche and the additional leadership of the DOJ wrote that “an oral directive is not enforceable as a judicial mandate”, claiming that the government does not violate any order because the oral directive in the court, issued at 6:46 pm and on Saturday, was not in the written order that was filed to the file at 7:25 PM et.
The alleged members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Aragua Train, which were deported by the United States government, are arrested at the Center for Confinement of Terrorism in Tecoluca, El Salvador in a photo obtained on March 16, 2025.
El Salvador presidential press office through AP
In a judicial presentation on Sunday night, the lawyers of the ACLU and Democracy Forward Foundation argued that the Trump administration could have committed a “shameless violation” of the Court’s directive by acting as if the order only applied to flights in airspace and people on US soil.
“This court ordered oral and unambiguous to the government that changes to any plane that would transport individuals that are eliminated in accordance with the proclamation of the AEA,” the presentation said.
The lawyers of the Department of Justice insisted on a court that presented on Sunday that they eliminated “gang members” in accordance with the proclamation of Trump’s alien enemies law before the Court issued its order.
However, lawyers representing some of the migrants argued that the statement not only conflicts with the timeline of events, but also wrong when the United States loses the jurisdiction of non -citizens.
“If the airplanes had clarified the territory of the United States, the United States retained custody at least until the planes landed and the individuals were delivered to foreign governments,” said the claimers’ presentation. “And the court could not have been clearer than worried about losing the jurisdiction and authority to order the individuals who returned if they were given to foreign governments, not in case the planes had cleared us territory or even landed in another country.”
The lawyers of the plaintiffs said that, according to the information available publicly, it seems that two flights that transport migrants under the law of enemies alien landed after the verbal and written orders of the Court. They added that “the public comments made by the defendants and the president of El Salvador” who boast that the court is “too late” to stop deportation reinforces the concerns that the Trump administration could have violated the order.
“The defendants could have changed the plane without delivering the people subject to the proclamation and this court [Temporary Restraining Order]”The lawyers argued.
Finding deportations would cause irreparable damage, Boasberg’s temporary restriction order prohibited the Trump administration from deporting “all non -citizens who are subject to the proclamation of AEA” for at least 14 days.
“You will inform your customers of this immediately any plane containing these people who will take off or who is in the air needs to be returned to the United States,” Boasberg said during Saturday’s audience. “However, that is achieved, turning the plane or not embarking on anyone on the plane … This is something that must ensure that it is fulfilled immediately.”
The lawyers of the plaintiffs have asked Judge Boasberg to order the Trump administration to submit sworn statements to determine if the government violated their court order.
