Judge Boasberg to launch contempt proceedings for Trump administration [View all]

Source: Washington Post

Judge Boasberg to launch contempt proceedings for Trump administration
Federal judge will weigh whether the administration defied his order not to remove Venezuelan migrants from the country based on the wartime Alien Enemies Act

April 16, 2025 at 12:18 p.m. EDT


Soldiers stand guard as Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi L. Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT) in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 26. (Alex Brandon/Pool/AFP/Getty Images)

By Marianne LeVine, Spencer S. Hsu and Salvador Rizzo

Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of Washington, D.C., on Wednesday said he would launch proceedings to determine whether to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt for defying his order not to remove Venezuelan migrants from the country based on the wartime Alien Enemies Act.

Boasberg's order is the latest development in a broader showdown between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary, which has blocked or slowed many of the White House's far-reaching actions. The Supreme Court ruled this month that the plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in the wrong venue, taking the central legal issues of the case away from Boasberg.

Still, Boasberg moved forward with the contempt proceedings, saying that the Trump administration's actions on March 15, as the removal flights proceeded despite his order to the contrary, "demonstrate a willful disregard ... sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt." ... "The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions," Boasberg wrote in a 46-page opinion Wednesday. "None of their responses has been satisfactory."

Boasberg has pressed the Justice Department for weeks on why the administration deposited more than 130 Venezuelan deportees in a Salvadoran mega-prison without due process, hours after he ordered the administration not to do so and said any planes that had already taken off should be turned around and returned to the United States.

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This is a developing story. It will be updated.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/16/boasberg-trump-contempt-deportations-alien-enemies-planes/