The judge who tried to stop the deportation planes is not happy with the Trump administration

 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/17/judge-boasberg-trump-deportation-hearing-00234945

James Boasberg, the chief judge of the federal district court in Washington, was clearly galled by the government’s actions and legal arguments in the case, particularly its assertion that an order he issued Saturday to turn around any planes carrying such deportees had no force once they were outside U.S. territorial waters.

At the heart of the issue is Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 statute intended to bolster the president’s ability to deport foreign nationals from countries with which the United States is at war. Trump issued a proclamation labeling Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal organization, as sufficiently linked to the Venezuelan government to trigger those wartime powers.

Boasberg on Saturday ordered the administration to refrain from removing anyone from the country under Trump’s claimed authority after five Venezuelans who feared deportation under the Alien Enemies Act filed suit. Those five men apparently remain in the country, in U.S. custody. But planes carrying about 250 other Venezuelan nationals — many of whom the Trump administration accused of being members of Tren de Aragua — departed from the U.S. shortly before Boasberg issued his order. They landed Saturday night in El Salvador, which had agreed to take the prisoners for a fee.

At moments during the 45-minute hearing, the normally unflappable judge raised his voice, rejecting the Justice Department’s contention that the government had an exceptionally urgent need to move the planes.

Boasberg implied that the government had intentionally hurried the planes off the ground on Saturday afternoon because the government knew he had scheduled a hearing at 5 p.m. Saturday. “Any plane that you put into the air in or around that time, you knew that I was having a hearing at 5,” the judge said with evident frustration.