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Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg announced on Wednesday that he will move forward with proceedings to determine whether Trump administration officials should be held in criminal contempt for defying his explicit order not to deport Venezuelan migrants under the controversial Alien Enemies Act.
Despite Boasberg’s directive on March 15—which included instructions to turn back any flights already in the air—the administration carried out deportations to a Salvadoran mega-prison, sparking outrage and potential legal fallout.
“The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly,” Boasberg wrote in a 46-page opinion, noting a “willful disregard” of his instructions and a pattern of unsatisfactory responses from government officials.
Wartime Law Sparks Modern Legal Crisis
President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime-era statute last widely used during World War II, to justify the deportations. Legal experts and civil rights groups quickly condemned the move as unconstitutional and xenophobic.
The Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that plaintiffs had filed the related lawsuit in the wrong venue, limiting Boasberg’s jurisdiction over the central legal issues—but not his authority to investigate potential contempt of court.
“This is not just about policy—it’s about the rule of law,” Boasberg said from the bench, criticizing the administration’s evasions and its invocation of ‘state secrets’ to avoid disclosing key details.
“Who Gave the Order?”
In a dramatic courtroom exchange, Boasberg grilled Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign, asking who instructed pilots to ignore the court order.
“Who made the decision either not to tell the pilots anything or to tell them to keep going?” Boasberg asked.
“Your honor, I don’t know that,” Ensign replied.
The judge emphasized he would “get to the bottom of it,” suggesting officials may have acted in bad faith and intentionally rushed deportations before legal restraints could fully take effect.
Legal and Political Fallout
The government initially dismissed the judge’s verbal order as lacking “judicial weight” and later claimed planes were beyond enforcement once they left U.S. airspace. Legal scholars have challenged this logic, warning that such behavior risks deepening executive-judiciary tensions.
The use of the Alien Enemies Act—originally a relic of wartime internments—raises chilling historical echoes, particularly given its use to justify the internment of over 110,000 Japanese Americans during WWII.
“It’s an abuse of executive power and a clear breach of judicial authority,” said constitutional law expert Nicholas Parrillo of Yale Law School, noting how rare but serious contempt proceedings can be when agencies flout federal orders.
Bottom Line:
Boasberg’s potential contempt ruling underscores the growing legal resistance to the Trump administration’s immigration policies and its controversial use of wartime powers in peacetime. With court tensions escalating and federal agencies deflecting accountability, the coming weeks may offer a rare look into how far the judiciary is willing to go to rein in executive defiance—and what consequences, if any, await those responsible.
