(NEW YORK) — U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said at a hearing Thursday that he will follow up on a former DOJ official’s allegations that Trump administration officials suggested defying orders from courts in order to enforce the administration’s immigration policies.
The development came at the start of a hearing in which Boasberg was seeking to determine what due process rights were due to more than 250 Venezuelan nationals who were released to their home country from the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador last week after they were removed from the U.S. under the Alien Enemies Act.
Judge Boasberg began the hearing by bringing up former Justice Department official Erez Reuveni’s whistleblower complaint, saying that Reuveni’s allegations “to the extent they prove accurate have only strengthened the case for contempt” against the administration.
The federal judge said the court will follow up on the allegations made by Reuveni “and how they affect the contempt proceedings” — and also said he will assess whether DOJ attorneys’ conduct might “warrant referral to state bars.”
Regarding the more than 250 Venezuelan nationals who were released to Venezuela last week in a prisoner swap, Boasberg ordered status reports on whether all the CECOT deportees have been released from detention in Venezuela, as well as their willingness to return to the U.S. and any challenges they may want to bring on their deportation to El Salvador.
The judge ordered both parties to submit a status report by Aug. 7 and every two weeks thereafter.
“My sense is that there may be some who will think it’s too dangerous to come back here and risk being sent to CECOT again,” Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the ACLU, told the judge. “But as Your Honor knows, the individuals that were removed under the [AEA] were taken out of immigration proceedings where they were applying for asylum.”
Gelernt said the ACLU has not been in contact with the deportees since their arrival in Venezuela, but said the organization intends to reach them all “immediately.”
In March the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act — an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process — to deport two planeloads of alleged migrant gang members to the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.
An official with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged shortly afterward that “many” of the men deported on March 15 lacked criminal records in the United States — but said that “the lack of specific information about each individual” actually “demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”
Boasberg ruled in June that the men, who were then being held in El Salvador’s CECOT facility, were entitled to practice their due process rights to challenge their detentions.
At Thursday’s hearing, an attorney for the Justice Department said the government is prepared to comply with a court order to facilitate the return of the Venezuelans to the U.S.
When asked by Boasberg if the government would be willing to return the Venezuelans if the Supreme Court finds the Alien Enemies Act proclamation invalid, the DOJ attorney said the CECOT deportees would have to “bring different claims.”
“We’d have to see what those claims look like, and I don’t have an analysis on my fingertips of what that would look like absent the AEA,” the DOJ lawyer said.
In a filing last week, lawyers for the former detainees argued that they should still be able to practice the due process rights they were deprived of when they were removed from the country with little notice under an authority that multiple judges have ruled is unlawful.
“Plaintiffs respectfully request that this Court request an immediate status update from the government as to whether it is prepared to bring the members of the class back to the United States for habeas proceedings,” they argued.
As part of a series of lawsuits that began in March when Trump issued the proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act, Judge Boasberg has sharply criticized the conduct of the Trump administration and considered holding officials in contempt. In an order last month, Boasberg rebuked the Trump administration for detaining the men on “flimsy, even frivolous, accusations” and failing to provide them with a meaningful opportunity to exercise their rights.
“Defendants instead spirited away plane loads 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,” Judge Boasberg wrote.
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