The Justice Department insisted Tuesday that deportation flights that sent Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador over the weekend did not violate a court order.
The federal response came after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg granted an emergency order Saturday to temporarily block the flights from taking place for 14 days while his court considered the legality of using the 1798 wartime-era Alien Enemies Act to immediately deport Venezuelan nationals and alleged members of the violent gang Tren de Aragua. He ordered the Trump administration on Monday to submit more information about Saturday’s flights, including what time each plane took off from the U.S.
“The Court… ordered the Government to address the form in which it can provide further details about flights that left the United States before 7:25 PM,” reads a filing Tuesday that was co-signed by Attorney General Pamela Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and others. “The Government maintains that there is no justification to order the provision of additional information, and that doing so would be inappropriate, because even accepting Plaintiffs’ account of the facts, there was no violation of the Court’s written order (since the relevant flights left U.S. airspace, and so their occupants were ‘removed,’ before the order issued), and the Court’s earlier oral statements were not independently enforceable as injunctions.”
Boasberg on Tuesday ordered the Justice Department to answer five other questions, submitting declarations to him under seal by noon on Wednesday: “1) What time did the plane take off from U.S. soil and from where? 2) What time did it leave U.S. airspace? 3) What time did it land in which foreign country (including if it made more than one stop)? 4) What time were individuals subject solely to the Proclamation transferred out of U.S. custody? and 5) How many people were aboard solely on the basis of the Proclamation?”
In granting the emergency order Saturday, Boasberg sided with the plaintiffs – Democracy Forward and the ACLU – who had argued that the deportations would likely pose imminent and “irreparable” harm to the migrants under the time proposed.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION HAS NOON DEADLINE TO DISCLOSE DEPORTATION FLIGHT DETAILS AFTER JUDGE’S ORDER
Prison guards transfer deportees from the U.S., alleged to be Venezuelan gang members, to the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 16, 2025. (El Salvador presidential press office via AP)
Boasberg also ordered the Trump administration on Saturday to immediately halt any planned deportations and to notify their clients that “any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States,” he said.
However, the decision apparently came too late to stop two planes filled with more than 200 migrants who were deported to El Salvador.
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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News in an interview that a plane carrying hundreds of migrants, including more than 130 persons removed under the Alien Enemies Act, had already “left U.S. airspace” by the time the order was handed down.
US PAID EL SALVADOR TO TAKE VENEZUELAN TREN DE ARAGUA MEMBERS, WHITE HOUSE SAYS
A prison guard transfers deportees from the U.S. to the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on Sunday. (El Salvador presidential press office via AP)
“ICE understood the Proclamation Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of The United States by Tren De Aragua to be effective only once it was posted to the White House website, which was at or around 3:53 PM EDT on March 15, 2025,” ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert Cerna wrote in a declaration Tuesday.
“On March 15, 2025, after the Proclamation was publicly posted and took effect, three planes carrying aliens departed the United States for El Salvador International Airport (SAL). Two of those planes departed U.S. territory and airspace before 7:25 PM EDT. The third plane departed after that time, but all individuals on that third plane had Title 8 final removal orders and thus were not removed solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue,” he continued.
James Boasberg (Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty)
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“To avoid any doubt, no one on any flight departing the United States after 7:25 PM EDT on March 15, 2025, was removed solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue. ICE carefully tracks the TdA members who are amenable to removal proceedings. At this time approximately 54 members of TdA are in detention and on the detained docket, approximately 172 are on the non-detained docket, and approximately 32 are in criminal custody with active detainers against them. Should they be transferred to ICE custody, they will likely be placed in removal proceedings,” he said.
Fox News’ David Spunt contributed to this report.
