Hundreds of Venezuelans deported to El Salvador have right to challenge detention, judge rules
FILE PHOTO: U.S. military personnel escort an alleged gang member who was deported by the U.S. along with others the U.S. alleges are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and the MS-13 gang to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison, at the El Salvador International Airport in San Luis Talpa, El Salvador April 12, 2025. Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidencia/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Hundreds of Venezuelans deported from the United States to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law must be given the chance to challenge their detentions, and the Trump administration must facilitate the legal challenges, a U.S. judge ruled on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg gave the Trump administration one week to detail how it would facilitate the deportees' filing of legal challenges.
His ruling stopped short of expressly ordering the Trump administration to bring the hundreds of Venezuelan migrants currently being held in a mega-prison in El Salvador back to the United States.
In his ruling, Boasberg wrote that the individuals were deported without adequate notice or the right to contest their removals.
'That process - which was improperly withheld - must now be afforded to them,' Boasberg wrote.
The Venezuelans were deported in March after President Donald Trump, a Republican, invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang without going through normal immigration procedures.
Boasberg's Wednesday ruling is the first to address the fate of these detainees.
Neither the White House nor the Justice Department immediately responded to requests for comment.
Family members of many of the Venezuelans deported on March 15 and their lawyers deny any gang ties, and say they were not given a chance to contest the Trump administration's allegations in court.
The U.S. Supreme Court in April held that migrants must be allowed to challenge their removals under the Alien Enemies Act. Courts around the country have since barred the Trump administration from further deportations of alleged Tren de Aragua members under the law.
But those rulings only applied to Venezuelans still in the U.S. facing possible deportation under the law.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen; editing by Ryan Patrick Jones, Noeleen Walder and Deepa Babington)
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