U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to provide all non-citizens deported from the U.S. to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador to be afforded the opportunity to seek habeas relief in court, and challenge their alleged gang status— the latest in a heated fight centered on President Donald Trump‘s use of the 1789 Alien Enemies Act to deport certain migrants.”
“In short, the Government must facilitate the Class’s ability to seek habeas relief to contest their removal under the Act,” Judge Boasberg said in the order, filed late Wednesday afternoon. “Exactly what such facilitation must entail will be determined in future proceedings. Although the Court is mindful that such a remedy may implicate sensitive diplomatic or national-security concerns within the exclusive province of the Executive Branch, it also has a constitutional duty to provide a remedy that will “make good the wrong done.”
Notably, the order also includes Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Salvadorian migrant and alleged MS-13 member who was deported from Maryland to El Salvador in March in what administration officials have acknowledged was an administrative error. That case alone had touched off a heated court fight, which prompted intervention from the Supreme Court in April.
WHO IS JAMES BOASBERG, THE US JUDGE AT THE CENTER OF TRUMP’S DEPORTATION EFFORTS?
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg made headlines earlier this year for granting the first emergency restraining order blocking the Trump administration from invoking a 1798 law to immediately deport Venezuelan nationals, including alleged members of the violent gang Tren de Aragua, in March.
He also ordered that plane carrying migrants removed by the law in question be “immediately” returned to the U.S., which did not happen.The Trump administration is currently facing multiple court challenges over those deportation flights it conducted in March under the Alien Enemies Act, which Judge Boasberg had ordered to be immediately returned.
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