‘Pretty sketchy’: Judge floats holding Trump team in contempt for defying deportation order
.jpg "FILE — Judge James Boasberg in his chambers at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington, March 13, 2023. The Trump administration has asked a federal judge to dissolve the orders he put in place this weekend barring it from deporting suspected members of a Venezuelan street gang from the country under a rarely invoked wartime statute called the Alien Enemies Act. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times)")
Judge James E. Boasberg said he would decide next week whether to hold Trump administration officials in contempt for violating his order to pause last month’s flights of migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Deputy Attorney General Drew Ensign struggled to answer a barrage of Boasberg’s questions during a Thursday hearing in Washington’s federal court, home to a multi-week standoff over President Trump’s executive power to exert summary deportations in the name of national security.
“If I find there’s probable cause for contempt … there’s a good chance we’ll have hearings,” Boasberg told Ensign, after the Justice Department attorney failed to reveal who in the Trump administration made the decision to not order back planes of hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members on March 15.
Boasberg also called it “pretty sketchy” that the government declined to share information with him about the flights. Ensign argued that even private disclosure of such state secrets to the judge could have “diplomatic consequences.”
Boasberg originally imposed a 14-day temporary restraining order halting the deportations of alleged members of Tren de Aragua under the Alien Enemies Act, expressing concerns about the lack of due process and the unprecedented application of a wartime law in the absence of a formal declaration of war.
Despite that order, the Trump administration proceeded with carrying out its deportation flights to El Salvador, contending that the planes had departed before Boasberg’s order was finalized.
On Thursday, Boasberg strongly surmised the government had purposefully rushed the planes out of the country before he could properly hear the case, which was triggered by an early morning filing by the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents five plaintiffs.
“Why wouldn’t the prudent thing be to say, ‘Let’s slow down here, let’s see what the judge says?’” Boasberg asked Ensign as he tried to piece together the hour-by-hour actions of Trump’s team on March 15.
The judge also underscored how the administration had acknowledged it had mistakenly deported at least one man due to an administrative error.
Perhaps the most telling indication of Boasberg’s consideration of contempt came when he began probing Ensign for a list of specific names of who Ensign communicated with about Boasberg’s original restraining order — and who held the authority to turn the planes back.
Ensign listed Department of Homeland Security attorneys James Percival, a Floridian, and Joseph N. Mazzara, as well as James L. Bischoff, an assistant legal adviser for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the State Department as those he informed about the judge’s order.
READ MORE: Judge says deported migrants entitled to due process
But when pressed by Boasberg on who decided against ordering the planes back, Ensign cited attorney-client privilege before pleading ignorance.
“You don’t know who didn’t order the planes back?,” Boasberg probed.
“I do not know those operational details,” Ensign replied.
While attorneys for the ACLU were present for the hearing, they declined the opportunity to re-litigate the details of the case.
“We obviously feel the order was violated,” ACLU lead attorney Lee Gelernt said simply.
In all of his audible and written decrees, Boasberg has never said the administration can’t continue its deportations using traditional immigration statutes and has not asked for a single detainee to be released. He’s simply ruled that the government give deportees a chance for a rebuttal in its use of a law invoked only three previous times.
If Boasberg decides to hold any number of Trump administration officials in contempt, it would mark a severe intensification of a protracted legal battle that has become hotly politicized as Republican allies of the president fume at the power of a single federal judge.
RELATED: Trump asks Supreme Court to let him deport more Venezuelans
As the temperature around Boasberg’s string of rulings intensified, Speaker Mike Johnson threatened to defund or even eliminate an entire district court — a proposal that has fallen largely flat with Republicans in the U.S. Senate.
And while Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas filed impeachment proceedings against Boasberg, the idea hasn’t gained much traction among Republicans on Capitol Hill.
“When is the hearing on impeachment of Judge Boasberg? When’s the hearing? Give me a date. Give the American people a date. Oh wait, Chairman [Darrell] Issa says that this is actually a political symbol and not actual legislation. So it’s a fake impeachment,” said South Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz during a hearing on Tuesday.
Last week, after Boasberg denied the administration’s request to lift his order — reaffirming that individuals designated as gang members must be afforded the opportunity to challenge their status before being deported — the Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and overrule Boasberg.
Still, the nation’s high court could decline the case.
“Most of what the Supreme Court weighs in on are those situations in which the law is unclear because the lower courts are in disagreement with one another, and here we don’t have that,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, an immigration law expert who teaches at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. “The Supreme Court could simply say, look, this is better left to develop in the lower courts.”
But Boasberg’s decision to initiate contempt proceedings against Trump administration officials could come first.
The best known example of a high-profile official being held in contempt over immigration policy is Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona. He was found in criminal contempt of court in the summer of 2017 related to his use of racial profiling in immigration enforcement.
Though he was convicted, Trump spared his political ally of any jail time by granting Arpaio his first presidential pardon.
This story was originally published April 3, 2025 at 5:08 PM.
