On Wednesday, Judge James E. Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to take further steps to give 140 suspected Venezuelan gang members deported to El Salvador more due process in their immigration cases.
Boasberg, in a 69-page opinion critical of the Trump administration, claimed the suspected gang members would be able to prevail in claims that they were denied due process in their deportation cases. In March, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which has been used before in the country's history during wartime, to see to it that the 140 Venezuelans were deported to El Salvador.
Boasberg ruled that the Trump administration “must facilitate the [Venezuelans’] ability to seek habeas relief to contest their removal under the Act," and would likely have to return to the US.
“Perhaps the president lawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act,” Judge Boasberg wrote in the opinion. “Perhaps, moreover, defendants are correct that plaintiffs are 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.”
The ruling from Boasberg is the latest decision in a months-long saga over the judge’s as well as Democrats’ insistence that the president must return the suspected gang members to the United States for more legal process after they were deported under the Alien Enemies Act.
One of those in the group of suspected gang members that was deported to El Salvador is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who has gotten visits from Democrat lawmakers despite the allegations against him of being abusive to his wife and being suspected of human trafficking, in addition to judges previously classifying him as a verified member of MS-13.
Boasberg wrote in the opinion that Trump officials “spirited away planeloads of people before any such challenge could be made. And now, significant evidence has come to light indicating that many of those currently entombed in CECOT have no connection to the gang and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations.”
He went on to write that the Trump administration must facilitate more due process for the suspected gang members. “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,’” he wrote in the opinion.
