A federal judge said Thursday that the Trump administration was likely acting in “bad faith” when it carried out deportations of three planeloads of migrants to El Salvador last month despite a temporary restraining order.
Judge James Boasberg said he is trying to find out whether to hold the administration in contempt — and his questions during a hearing indicated he is inclined to do so.
He said it seems the Trump administration kept its operations secret until it found the court was getting involved, then rushed its operations to get the planes in the air to try to beat him.
“If you really believed everything you did that day was legal and survived a court challenge, I can’t believe you would have operated in the way you did,” Judge Boasberg scolded.
He delivered a scorching line of questions to Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign that suggested he thinks someone in the chain of command decided to go ahead with the planes even after the judge had issued an oral order demanding they turn around.
Judge Boasberg said he’s now pondering what steps to take if he does find contempt — including demanding the U.S. bring the deported migrants, whom the administration says are members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, back to the U.S.
Drew Ensign, the Justice Department’s lawyer, denied that things were sped up to beat the judge and said the Maryland man was not deported based on the Alien Enemies Act, which President Trump has flexed to speed up deportations of gang suspects.
“I don’t think there’s any facts in the record for that,” Mr. Ensign said.
But he lacked answers to many of the questions Judge Boasberg fired at him, leading the judge to say he’s considering requiring government officials to testify about what they knew and did.
“There’s a good chance we’ll have hearings,” he said.
The case has quickly turned into a major showdown between the president and the courts, with the administration saying Judge Boasberg is trampling on critical national security prerogatives of the executive branch.
Mr. Trump signed a proclamation on March 14 invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law, to speed deportations of Venezuelan and Salvadoran migrants he said are part of MS-13 and Tren de Aragua. The government has declared both gangs to be terrorist organizations.
The proclamation was still secret on the morning of March 15 when lawyers for the migrants rushed to court to try to block the deportations.
The proclamation was made public just before 4 p.m., by which time migrants were already being bused to the planes.
Judge Boasberg held a hearing at 5 p.m. and issued an oral order, followed by a written order, trying to block the flights.
Two flights were already in the air. A third flight took off later, though the government says it only included migrants being deported under the regular immigration law, not the Alien Enemies Act.
Judge Boasberg said Thursday that the speed the administration showed suggests it was trying to beat any scrutiny.
“Is there any other inference than that there was an expedited effort to get people on the planes before my hearing at 5 o’clock, or before I ruled?”
Even as Judge Boasberg tries to figure out what happened, the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to get involved and halt his restraining order to allow deportations to continue.
