High-stakes hearing set for Trump administration to argue that it didn’t violate a judge’s order with deportation flights

Justice Department attorneys will appear before Judge James Boasberg on Thursday to make its case for why the Trump administration did not violate his orders halting the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans the government has accused of being part of a gang.

Justice Department attorneys will appear before Judge James Boasberg on Thursday to make its case for why the Trump administration did not violate his orders halting the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans the government has accused of being part of a gang. The so-called show cause hearing represents the closest a federal judge has come to deciding whether the administration has defied a judicial command. While other judges around the US have considered in recent months whether the government violated their orders in disputes over federal funding and transgender rights, Thursday’s hearing goes much further as it’s the first step in Boasberg potentially holding officials in contempt and possibly ordering sanctions. The case has emerged as one of the highest-profile and most contentious court battles of President Donald Trump’s second term, with the president calling for Boasberg’s impeachment over his handling of the matter, leading to a rare rebuke of the rhetoric from Chief Justice John Roberts. At the center of the case is Trump’s invocation of the sweeping wartime authority in a 1798 law to let his administration quickly carry out the deportations. Shortly after, civil rights group representing the Venezuelans mounted a legal challenge, Boasberg said from the bench during a March 15 hearing that any planes carrying migrants deported under the authority must immediately return to the US. But two such flights carrying more than 100 migrants continued to El Salvador the day of the hearing, and Boasberg promptly embarked on a fact-finding mission about the flights, vowing to “get to the bottom of whether they violated my order – who ordered this and what the consequences will be.”