Trump foe Judge Boasberg rules deported migrants can challenge removals, in blow to admin

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to provide all non-citizens deported from the U.S. to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador to be afforded the opportunity to seek habeas relief in court, and challenge their alleged gang status— the latest in a heated fight centered on President Donald Trump’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport certain migrants.

“In short, the Government must facilitate the Class’s ability to seek habeas relief to contest their removal under the Act,” Judge Boasberg said in the order, filed late Wednesday afternoon. “Exactly what such facilitation must entail will be determined in future proceedings. Although the Court is mindful that such a remedy may implicate sensitive diplomatic or national-security concerns within the exclusive province of the Executive Branch, it also has a constitutional duty to provide a remedy that will ‘make good the wrong done.’”

Notably, the order also includes Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Salvadorian migrant and alleged MS-13 member who was deported from Maryland to El Salvador in March in what administration officials have acknowledged was an administrative error. That case alone had touched off a heated court fight, which prompted intervention from the Supreme Court in April.

WHO IS JAMES BOASBERG, THE US JUDGE AT THE CENTER OF TRUMP’S DEPORTATION EFFORTS?
 

A split image of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump, right. Judge Boasberg will hear from Trump lawyers and plaintiffs in an amended Alien Enemies Act case on Wednesday, a high-profile hearing likely to spark fresh ire from Trump.  (Getty Images)

At least 261 migrants were deported in the first wave of flights to El Salvador, including more than 100 Venezuelan nationals who were subject to removal “solely on the basis” of the law temporarily blocked by the federal district court.

Judge Boasberg’s new, 69-page order begins by invoking Franz Kafka’s “The Trial,” in which the protagonist, Josef K., awakens to find two strange men outside his room, who proceed to arrest him for unspecified crimes. “Such was the situation into which Frengel Reyes Mota, Andry Jose Hernandez Romero, and scores of other Venezuelan noncitizens say they were plunged on March 15, 2025,” Boasberg begins, before outlining the lengthy, complex saga that has spawned dozens of federal court challenges across the country— though the one brought before his court on March 15 was the very first— and which later prompted the Supreme Court to rule, on two separate occasions, that the hurried removals had violated migrants’ due process protections under the U.S. Constitution.

JUDGE BOASBERG CANCELS PLANNED HEARING TO REVIEW TRUMP DEPORTATIONS

More than 250 suspected gang members arrive in El Salvador by plane, including 238 members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang and 23 members of the MS-13 gang, who were deported to El Salvador by the US in San Salvador, El Salvador on Mar. 16, 2025.  (El Salvador Presidency / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Boasberg invoked the high court’s rulings before reiterating that due process includes providing migrants prior notice of removal, as well as so-called habeas protections, or the right to challenge their removals in court.

“Defendants plainly deprived these individuals of their right to seek habeas relief before their summary removal from the United States — a right that need not itself be vindicated through a habeas petition,” Boasberg said.

He allowed that it is possible that the Trump administration “lawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act” as well as the possibility that defendants are correct that the individuals removed are, in fact gang members. “But — and this is the critical point — there is simply no way to know for sure, as the CECOT Plaintiffs never had any opportunity to challenge the government’s say-so,” Boasberg said.

The order is almost certain to spark fierce backlash from the Trump administration, which has previously railed against Boasberg’s earlier orders and temporary restraining order handed down in March. He later found probable cause to hold the administration in contempt of the court, citing the government’s “willful disregard” for his March 15 emergency order, though those proceedings were later halted by a federal appeals court.

SUPREME COURT GRANTS TRUMP REQUEST TO LIFT STAY HALTING VENEZUELAN DEPORTATIONS

James Boasberg, chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, attends a panel discussion at the annual American Board Association (ABA) Spring Antitrust Meeting at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, DC, on Apr. 2, 2025. (Drew ANGERER / AFP)

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U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg made headlines earlier this year for granting the first emergency restraining order blocking the Trump administration from invoking a 1798 law to immediately deport Venezuelan nationals, including alleged members of the violent gang Tren de Aragua, in March. 

He also ordered that plane carrying migrants removed by the law in question be “immediately” returned to the U.S., which did not happen. The Trump administration has been battling multiple court challenges centered on those deportation flights.