Thread: Boasberg orders return of Venezuelan deportees challenging Alien Enemies Act removal

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Boasberg orders return of Venezuelan deportees challenging Alien Enemies Act removal

Story by Rebecca Beitsch
• 7h • 4 min read

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The Hill's Headlines — December 22, 2025

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A federal judge on Monday ruled the Trump administration must allow Venezuelan men it deported to a megaprison in El Salvador to return to the U.S. to fight their case, including disputing that they were part of a gang.
The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg is the latest development in a case brought by more than 100 Venezuelan men who were removed from the U.S. in March under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) after they were accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

Before they were flown out of the country amid a court hearing challenging their removal, the men had sought a court order to bar their deportation. Numerous courts found the men were unlawfully removed, determining the Alien Enemies Act still must provide due process to those who wish to dispute alleged gang ties.
“The Court finds that the only remedy that would give effect to its granting of Plaintiffs’ Motion would be to order the Government to undo the effects of their unlawful removal by facilitating a meaningful opportunity to contest their designation and the Proclamation’s validity. Otherwise, a finding of unlawful removal would be meaningless for Plaintiffs, who have already been sent back to Venezuela against their wishes and without due process,” Boasberg wrote.
“Expedited removal cannot be allowed to render this relief toothless. If secretly spiriting individuals to another country were enough to neuter the Great Writ, then ‘the Government could snatch anyone off the street, turn him over to a foreign country, and then effectively foreclose any corrective course of action.’”

The ruling gives the Trump administration until Jan. 5 “to facilitate the return of Plaintiffs to the United States or to otherwise provide them with hearings that satisfy the requirements of due process.”
Lee Gelernt, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union who is representing the men, said it was a victory for a group that has disputed from the beginning that they had ties to Tren de Aragua.
“After enduring months of torture, these men will finally get the due process they deserve, notwithstanding the Trump administration’s underhanded attempts to deny them any opportunity to contest the accusations that they are gang members,” he said in a statement to The Hill.
The Trump administration in July returned 252 men to Venezuela who had been imprisoned in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT for its acronym in Spanish. Of that group, 137 are part of the class challenging their removal.

Many of the men who were deported were labeled as gang members on the basis of their tattoos. Among the notable cases were deportees who had tattoos referring to sports teams, autism, and the Three Kings Day celebration of their hometown.
Boasberg said it does not matter that the men are no longer in CECOT, noting they face a number of “collateral consequences” as a result of being removed under the AEA.
Not only are they barred from entering the U.S., but they are now considered members of foreign terrorist organizations, allowing the U.S. government to seize their assets and prohibit them from seeking asylum. Many of the class members had come to the U.S. to do just that, arguing they were unsafe in Venezuela because of their opposition to the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
“If Plaintiffs were to succeed in their challenge to their designation as TdA members and alien enemies, these ongoing injuries would be remedied,” he wrote.

Boasberg is also overseeing a contempt inquiry to determine whether Trump administration officials defied his earlier ruling to turn around or halt any flights carrying the men.
He had ordered hearings with a current Justice Department attorney as well as another attorney, Erez Reuveni, who left the department and filed a whistleblower complaint outlining efforts to resist Boasberg’s order. Those proceedings have been paused after the Justice Department appealed the matter to a higher court and tried to toss Boasberg from the case.
Boasberg touches on the matter only briefly, noting Reuveni’s account that Emil Bove, then the No. 3 official at the Justice Department, said the department may have to tell the courts “f— you” on the Alien Enemies Act.
“To begin, Plaintiffs’ hasty and secretive removal from the United States was certainly intended to deprive them of an opportunity to secure prior judicial review. First, the President invoked the AEA but waited to publicize the Proclamation,” Boasberg wrote.

“They were then flown out of the country literally as this Court conducted an emergency hearing on the validity of their removal.”
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Boasberg orders return of Venezuelan deportees challenging Alien Enemies Act removal

OUTRAGEOUS: Activist Judge Boasberg ORDERS Trump Administration to ALLOW Deported Venezuelans from El Salvador to RETURN to the U.S.

by Jim Hᴏft Dec. 23, 2025 8:45 am



Credit: Valerie Plesch / Bloomberg via Getty ImagesObama-era activist Judge James Boasberg has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Venezuelan nationals who were lawfully removed from the United States and transferred to El Salvador.

The ruling, issued late Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, stems from litigation brought by far-left immigration activists challenging the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to remove suspected members of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

Back in April, the US Supreme Court vacated Judge Boasberg’s orders barring the Trump Administration’s removals of Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act.

This comes after Judge Boasberg granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) to stop the Trump administration from deporting thousands of Venezuelan nationals believed to be members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang under the Alien Enemies Act.

The high court said Boasberg lacked jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court, however, said the administration must give reasonable notice for gang members to challenge their deportations in court.

In June, Judge Boasberg then ruled that the Trump DOJ must give illegal alien Venezuelan gang members sent to El Salvador’s CECOT prison a chance to challenge their deportations.

Boasberg ruled that nearly every single one of the 140 Venezuelan gang members sent to CECOT was deported illegally.

The judge said the Trump Administration must give the deported gang members a chance to seek habeas relief in court.

“Significant evidence has come to light indicating that many of those entombed in CECOT have no connection to the gang and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations,” the judge wrote.

In a sweeping 43-page opinion released late Monday night, Boasberg declared that the United States allegedly maintained “constructive custody” over the Venezuelans even after they were transferred to El Salvador, thereby giving his court jurisdiction to intervene and order their return.

“In many constructive-custody cases, it is hard for a court to discern whether petitioners would be released upon a respondent’s request. Not so here. Petitioners have indeed been released upon the United States’s request. Since this Court’s June 4 Opinion, multiple developments have shown that the United States is able to request, and has successfully requested, the release of CECOT detainees.

First, after the Government was ordered to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia from CECOT, he was brought back to the United States on June 6. This return followed public statements made by the President of the United States agreeing that he could “call up the president of El Salvador” to secure the return of detainees like Abrego Garcia.

Second, Plaintiffs in this case were indeed released upon the United States’s request, in what appears to be a clear prisoner exchange between our country and Venezuela.

In July, all 252 Venezuelans removed from the United States and detained in CECOT were sent to Venezuela. At the same time, ten U.S. nationals were released from Venezuela and sent back to the United States.

[…]

The Court thus concludes that the Government retained, and exercised, the power to control the return of CECOT detainees.”

According to the ruling, the court claims the Trump administration violated due-process rights by deporting suspected members of the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua without providing individualized hearings beforehand.

As a remedy, Boasberg ordered the government to facilitate their return to the United States so they can pursue habeas corpus claims in U.S. courts.

The ruling grants the Trump administration until January 5, 2026, to facilitate the return of more than 100 Venezuelan men.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/202...tration-allow/