How the White House ignored a judge's order to turn back deportation flights

The Trump administration says it ignored a Saturday court order to turn around two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members
-- because the flights were over international waters and therefore the ruling "didn't apply", two senior officials tell Axios.

Why it matters:
The administration's decision to defy a federal judge's order is exceedingly rare and highly controversial.

"Court order defied. First of many as I've been warning and start of true constitutional crisis,"
national security attorney Mark S. Zaid,
a Trump critic, wrote on X,
-- adding that Trump could ultimately be impeached.

The White House welcomes that fight.

"This is headed to the Supreme Court. And we're going to win,"
a senior White House official told Axios.

A second administration official said Trump was not defying the judge whose ruling came too late for the planes to change course:

"Very important that people understand we are not actively defying court orders."

State of play:
Trump's advisers contend U.S. District Judge #James #Boasberg overstepped his authority by issuing an order that blocked the president from deporting about 250 alleged Tren de Aragua gang members under the "Alien Enemies Act of 1789".

The war-time law gives the executive extreme immense power to deport noncitizens without a judicial hearing.

But it has been little-used, and never in peacetime.

"It's the showdown that was always going to happen between the two branches of government,"
a senior White House official said.

"And it seemed that this was pretty clean. You have [[alleged]] Venezuelan gang members ... These are bad guys, as the president would say."

How it happened: White House Deputy Chief of Staff #Stephen #Miller "orchestrated" the process in the West Wing in tandem with Homeland Security Secretary #Kristy #Noem.

Few outside their teams knew what was happening.

They didn't actually set out to defy a court order.

"We wanted them on the ground first, before a judge could get the case,
but this is how it worked out,"
said the official.

The timeline:
Trump signed the executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act on Friday night,
but intentionally did not advertise it.

On Saturday morning, word of the order leaked, officials said,
prompting a mad scramble to get planes in the air.

At 2:31 p.m. Saturday, an immigration activist who tracks deportation flights, posted on X that
"TWO HIGHLY UNUSUAL ICE flights"
were departing from Texas to El Salvador,
which had agreed to accept Venezuelan gang members deported from the U.S.

Hours later,
during a court hearing filed by the ACLU.,
Boasberg ordered a halt to the deportations and said any flights should be turned around mid-air.

"This is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately,"
he told the Justice Department,
according to the Washington Post.

At that point,
about 6:51 p.m.,
both flights were off the Yucatan Peninsula, according to flight paths posted on X.

Inside the White House, officials discussed whether to order the planes to turn around.

On advice from a team of administration lawyers,
the administration pressed ahead.

"There was a discussion about how far the judge's ruling can go under the circumstances and over international waters and, on advice of counsel, we proceeded with deporting these thugs,"
the senior official said.

"They were already outside of US airspace. We believe the order is not applicable,"
a second senior administration official told Axios.

Yes, but:
The Trump administration was already spoiling for a fight over the Alien Enemies Act
— one of several fronts on which they believe legal challenges to the president's authority will only end up strengthening it when the Supreme Court rules in his favor.

Between the lines:
Officially, the Trump White House is not denying it ignored the judge's order,
and instead wants to shift the argument to whether it was right to expel alleged members of Tren de Aragua.

"If the Democrats want to argue in favor of turning a plane full of [[alleged]] rapists, murderers, and gangsters back to the United States,
that's a fight we are more than happy to take,"
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios when asked about the case.

It's unclear how many of the roughly 250 Venezuelans were deported under the Alien Enemies Act
and how many were kicked out of the U.S. due to other immigration laws.

It's also not clear whether all of them were actually gang members.

https://www.axios.com/2025/03/16/trump-white-house-defy-judge-deport-venezuelans

The US deported more than 250 mainly Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador
despite a US judge’s ruling to halt the flights on Saturday
after Donald Trump controversially invoked the "Alien Enemies Act",
a 1798 law meant only to be used in wartime.

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said 238 members of the Venezuelan gang "Tren de Aragua" and 23 members of the Salvadoran gang "MS-13" had arrived and were in custody as part of a deal under which the US will pay the Central American country to hold them in its 40,000-person capacity “terrorism confinement centre”.

The confirmation came hours AFTER a US federal judge expanded his ruling temporarily blocking the Trump administration from invoking the "Alien Enemies Act",
a wartime authority that allows the president broad leeway on policy and executive action to speed up mass deportations.

The US district judge #James #Boasberg had attempted to halt the deportations for all individuals deemed eligible for removal under Trump’s proclamation, which was issued on Friday.
Boasberg also ordered deportation flights already in the air to return to the US.
“Oopsie … Too late,” Bukele posted online, followed by a laughing emoji.
Soon after Bukele’s statement, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, thanked El Salvador’s leader.

The Alien Enemies Act has only ever been used three times before,
most recently during the second world war, when it was used to incarcerate Germans and Italians as well as for the mass internment of Japanese-American civilians.

It was originally passed by Congress in preparation for what the US believed would be an impending war with France.

It was also used during the war of 1812 and during the first world war.

The US attorney general, #Pam #Bondi, slammed Judge Boasberg’s stay on deportations.
“This order disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power, and it puts the public and law enforcement at risk,” Bondi said in a statement on Saturday night.

But lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union contend that the Trump does not have the authority to use the law against a criminal gang, rather than a recognized state.

On Sunday, the Republican senator Mike Rounds questioned
whether the deportation flights had ignored Judge Boasberg’s order to turn around.

“We’ll find out whether or not that actually occurred or not,” Rounds told CNN.
“I don’t know about the timing on it. I do know that we will follow the law.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/16/deportation-alleged-gang-members-el-salvador?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other