The Trump administration is standing its floor within the ongoing dispute about whether or not it willfully violated a court docket order final week, arguing in a court docket submitting late Tuesday {that a} federal choose’s directive to show round two deportation flights was not a binding order.
In a 14-page submitting, legal professionals with the Division of Justice argued that U.S. District Choose James Boasberg’s oral directive was “not enforceable as an injunction” when the choose ordered that the federal government flip round two deportation flights on their solution to El Salvador after the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport greater than 200 alleged Venezuelan gang members with out due course of.
The federal government failed to show the flights round, and an official subsequently acknowledged that “many” of the detainees didn’t have prison information in the US.
“[A]ny any order that restrained the invocation of the Proclamation couldn’t have thereby compelled the President to return international terrorists from exterior the US — and any governmental refusal to take action was thus not a violation of the Court docket’s orders,” Deputy Assistant Legal professional Normal Drew Ensign wrote in Tuesday’s submitting.
At no level within the submitting did the Trump administration argue it complied with the court docket’s oral directive to return the 2 flights of Venezuelan migrants, which was issued from the bench at roughly 6:45 p.m. ET final Saturday; as an alternative, the DOJ legal professionals attacked the authority of the bench ruling whereas insisting they complied with the court docket’s written order that was issued later that night.
“It’s well-settled that an oral directive just isn’t enforceable as an injunction,” Ensign wrote. “There are highly effective, common sense explanation why solely written injunctions are binding.”
As a result of Choose Boasberg didn’t point out the return of the flights in his written order — issued at roughly 7:25 p.m. ET on Saturday — Ensign argued that the Trump administration could have believed the choose modified his thoughts.
Alleged members of the Venezuelan prison group Tren de Aragua who have been deported by the U.S. authorities, are detained on the Terrorism Confinement Heart in Tecoluca, El Salvador in a photograph obtained Mar. 16, 2025.
Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidencia by way of Reuters
“When the written order didn’t embrace that command, the Authorities might moderately have understood that as reflecting the Court docket’s extra thought-about view in a shortly evolving state of affairs,” the submitting stated.
In response to DOJ legal professionals, the flights carrying the alleged members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua have been exterior of U.S. airspace when the choose issued his written order, that means Choose Boasberg lacked the authority to show the flights round.
“Right here, any members of the putative class aboard the referenced flights had already left the US when the minute order was entered, and thus had already been eliminated. No court docket has the ability to compel the President to return them, and there’s no sound foundation to learn the Court docket’s minute order as requiring that unprecedented step,” Ensign wrote.
DOJ legal professionals additionally slammed Choose Boasberg’s authority to redirect the flights, arguing the directive is an “astonishingly extremely vires train of judicial energy” that conflicts with “fundamental constitutional rules.”
“The President’s final route of the flights at situation right here — particularly as soon as that they had departed from U.S. airspace — implicated navy issues, nationwide safety, and international affairs exterior of our Nation’s borders. As such, it was past the courts’ authority to adjudicate,” the submitting stated.
On Monday, a federal appeals court docket heard arguments from the Trump administration searching for to overturn Boasberg’s block on using the Alien Enemies Act for deportations. The appeals court docket didn’t situation a direct ruling.
