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CBS News
3 hours ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Trump administration must give due process to Venezuelan men sent to Salvadoran prison, judge rules
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered the Trump administration to give more than 100 Venezuelan men it sent to a supermax prison in El Salvador earlier this year a chance to contest their deportation, the latest development after months of legal battles over the fate of the deportees. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg found that the 137 men removed to El Salvador on March 15 under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act had been "plainly deprived" of their due process rights. The Trump administration has argued the 18th century wartime law allows the government to summarily deport Venezuelans identified to be gang members, though that argument has been rejected by several federal judges. The deportees are held in El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center prison, or CECOT. Boasberg concluded that the secretive deportations to El Salvador in March had "improperly withheld" from the deportees due process rights that he said "must now be afforded to them." The order by Boasberg gave the Justice Department one week to say how it intends to provide the 137 Venezuelan deportees an opportunity to seek relief under the constitutional principle of habeas corpus, which allows people to challenge their detention. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. "As is now clear, CECOT Class members were entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removability pursuant to the Proclamation. That process — which was improperly withheld — must now be afforded to them. Put differently, Plaintiffs' ability to bring habeas challenges to their removal must be restored," Boasberg wrote. The judge added that the men "must be allowed the practical opportunity to seek habeas relief that they were previously denied," and their cases must be handled as if they had never been removed to El Salvador in the first place. Boasberg ruled that he does not have jurisdiction over Venezuelan men who are subject to the Alien Enemies Act proclamation and are still in state or federal custody. The judge said he cannot grant them relief from his position on the bench in D.C. after the American Civil Liberties Union asked for relief for both groups of men. The Trump administration has repeatedly said all the Venezuelan men deported to El Salvador are dangerous criminals and members of Tren de Aragua, a prison gang that the president labeled a wartime enemy and terrorist group. But a "60 Minutes" and CBS News review of the migrants' cases found that an overwhelming majority of the men have no apparent criminal convictions or charges. The Venezuelan migrants deported to El Salvador and imprisoned at CECOT include Andry Romero Hernandez, a gay makeup artist whom an independent journalist photographed weeping when he was transferred to the maximum-security facility. Boasberg also expressed concerns about the government's claims that all the deportees are gangsters, saying, "significant evidence has come to light indicating that many of those currently entombed in CECOT have no connection to the gang and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations." "The court correctly held that the government cannot simply wash its hands of all responsibility for these constitutional violations and leave these men to linger in a brutal prison, perhaps for the rest of their lives," said Lee Gelernt, the ACLU lawyer leading the legal challenge against the Trump administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act. The March 15 deportation flights at the center of the legal fight overseen by Boasberg sent roughly 240 Venezuelan men to El Salvador, alongside roughly two dozen Salvadorans accused of gang membership. According to government officials, 137 of the Venezuelans were expelled under the Alien Enemies Act, which allows deportations during a foreign invasion, while the rest were deported under regular immigration law. Earlier this year, Boasberg blocked deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, after a challenge was brought by the ACLU on behalf of a group of Venezuelan migrants who sought to prevent their removal under the more than 200-year-old wartime law. After an appeal of Boasberg's order by the Trump administration, the Supreme Court in April allowed the Trump administration to restart removals under the Alien Enemies Act, but mandated that those subject to removal are entitled to some level of due process, including a notice before their deportation. While the April Supreme Court ruling prohibited Boasberg from granting nationwide relief to those currently in state and local detention across the country, the ACLU asked him to consider the case of the men who are already in CECOT given that there are no other legal jurisdictions that apply. In April, Boasberg found that probable cause exists to find the Trump administration in criminal contempt over what he said was its "willful disregard" of his order to turn two planes carrying the men around. The judge said the Trump administration can remedy the breach of his order before contempt proceedings are initiated by asserting custody over the migrants who were removed in violation of it, so they can assert their right to challenge their removability. That has not happened yet, and the Trump administration has argued in both this case and the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia — who was deported due to an "administrative error" — that it does not have custody over the men, because they are technically under the control of the Salvadoran government. President Trump and his allies have repeatedly attacked Boasberg over his handling of the case that arose after the president issued a proclamation in March invoking the Alien Enemies Act.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US supreme court orders temporary halt to deportations of Venezuelan men
The US supreme court has ordered the Trump administration to temporarily halt the deportation of Venezuelan men in immigration custody, after their lawyers said they were at imminent risk of removal without the judicial review previously mandated by the justices. 'The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court,' the justices said early on Saturday. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, two of the court's leading conservatives, dissented. The order is the latest example of how the country's courts are challenging the Trump administration's overhaul of the immigration system, which has been characterized by a number of deportations that have either been wrongful or carried out without due process. Before the late-night supreme court ruling, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued in an emergency Friday court filing that dozens of Venezuelan men held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Bluebonnet detention center in Texas had been given notices indicating they were classified as members of the Tren de Aragua gang. They said the men would be deported under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) and were told 'that the removals are imminent and will happen tonight or tomorrow'. Related: Detained Turkish student must be transferred from Louisiana for hearing, judge rules The ACLU said immigration authorities were accusing other Venezuelan men held there of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which would make them subject to deportation. The ACLU said a number of the men in Texas had already been loaded onto a bus, and it urged the court to rule before they could be deported. The ACLU has already sued to block deportations under the AEA of two Venezuelans held in the Texas detention center and is asking a judge to issue an order barring removal of any immigrants in the region under the law. The supreme court has allowed some deportations under the AEA, but has previously ruled they could proceed only if those about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and were given 'a reasonable time' to contest their pending removals. Federal judges in Colorado, New York and southern Texas have also issued orders barring the removal of detainees under the AEA until the administration provides a process for them to make claims in court. But there's been no such order issued in the area of Texas that covers Bluebonnet, which is located 24 miles (39km) north of the city of Abilene in the far northern end of the state. District judge James Wesley Hendrix this week declined to bar the administration from removing the two men identified in the ACLU lawsuit because immigration officials filed sworn declarations that they would not be immediately deported. But the ACLU's Friday filing includes sworn declarations from three separate immigration lawyers who said their clients in Bluebonnet were given paperwork indicating they were members of Tren de Aragua and could be deported by Saturday. In one case, immigration lawyer Karene Brown said her client, identified by initials and who only spoke Spanish, was told to sign papers in English. 'Ice informed FGM that these papers were coming from the president, and that he will be deported even if he did not sign it,' Brown wrote. The ACLU asked Hendrix to issue a temporary order halting any such deportations. Later on Friday, with no response from Hendrix, the ACLU asked district judge James Boasberg in Washington to issue a similar emergency order, saying they had information that detainees were being loaded onto buses. In their court filing, lawyers say clients received a document on Friday from immigration officials, titled 'Notice and Warrant of Apprehension and Removal Under the Alien Enemies Act'. It read: 'You have been determined to be … a member of Tren de Aragua. … 'You have been determined to be an alien enemy subject to apprehension, restraint and removal from the United States … This is not a removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act.' Before the supreme court decision, Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat, denounced the reported plan. 'We cannot stand by,' Jayapal wrote on social media, as the Trump administration 'continues to disappear people'. Hours before the supreme court ruling was announced, an appeals court in Washington DC temporarily halted Boasberg's contempt proceedings against the Trump administration over its deportation flights to El Salvador last month. The court said the order was intended to provide 'sufficient opportunity' for the court to consider the government's appeal and 'should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion'.
