According to NBC News, WASHINGTON — A federal judge said in an order Wednesday that he has found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt over deportation flights that it sent to El Salvador.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg found "the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, 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. None of their responses has been satisfactory,” the judge wrote.
Boasberg ordered any planes that were in the air to be turned around during an emergency hearing on Saturday, March 15, shortly after the White House made public that President Donald Trump had signed an executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act — a rarely used wartime power — in order to deport alleged members of a Venezuelan gang.
Lawyers for the plaintiff in the case said their five clients were not members of the Tren de Aragua gang, and were being sent to a prison in El Salvador without any due process.
The judge then issued his order halting any deportations that were being carried out solely under the authority of the AEA for a two week period while he reviewed the legal issues.
"Despite the Court’s written Order and the oral command spelling out what was required for compliance, the Government did not stop the ongoing removal process," he said, and two planeloads of deportee were taken to a prison in El Salvador that has a history of human rights abuses.
The Supreme Court reversed Boasberg's decision last week, finding that the Washington-based judge didn't have jurisdiction since the deportees had been being held in Texas.
Boasberg said the fact the ruling was reversed does not mean the government can't be held in contempt.
The high court's determination that his order "suffered from a legal defect" does "not excuse the Government’s violation. Instead, it is a foundational legal precept that every judicial order 'must be obeyed' — no matter how 'erroneous' it 'may be' — until a court reverses it," Boasberg wrote.
"The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders — especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it," Boasberg wrote. "To permit such officials to freely 'annul the judgments of the courts of the United States' would not just 'destroy the rights acquired under those judgments'; it would make 'a solemn mockery' of 'he constitution itself.'”
The judge added that, “If Defendants opt to purge their contempt, they shall file by April 23, 2025, a declaration explaining the steps they have taken and will take to do so."
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling
