President Donald Trump issued a proclamation on March 15 invoking the Alien Enemies Act and declaring that Tren de Aragua is “a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization” aligned with the Venezuelan Maduro regime that “is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.”
Within hours of invoking the AEA, the Trump administration deported over 130 suspected Venezuelan gangsters — many of whom were credibly accused of murder, robbery, rape, and other crimes — to El Salvador, where they were placed in a Salvadoran prison for terrorists.
In July, the administration had Venezuelan deportees who were imprisoned at the Terrorism Confinement Center repatriated to Venezuela, where they were welcomed home by Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
‘Chief Judge Boasberg has compromised the impartiality of the judiciary.’
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, the Obama appointee who tried unsuccessfully to stop the illegal aliens’ March 15 removal from the U.S., certified the Venezuelan deportees as a class on Monday and ordered the administration to offer them legal relief abroad, though stopping short of ordering their return to the United States.
“The Court finds that the only remedy that would give effect to its granting of Plaintiffs’ Motion would be to order the Government to undo the effects of their unlawful removal by facilitating a meaningful opportunity to contest their designation and the Proclamation’s validity,” wrote Boasberg.
“Otherwise, a finding of unlawful removal would be meaningless for Plaintiffs, who have already been sent back to Venezuela against their wishes and without due process.”
RELATED: Judges break the law to stop Trump from enforcing it
Accused gangster at the Counter Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.
“Expedited removal cannot be allowed to render this relief toothless,” continued the activist judge. “If secretly spiriting individuals to another country were enough to neuter the Great Writ, then ‘the Government could snatch anyone off the street, turn him over to a foreign country, and then effectively foreclose any corrective course of action.'”
Boasberg — the activist judge who helped the Biden FBI spy on Republican lawmakers’ phone records, ordered in August the release of a woman accused of repeatedly threatening Trump’s life, and mandated a right to Medicaid for able-bodied adults without work requirements — gave the government a deadline of Jan. 5 to “submit its proposal either to facilitate the return of Plaintiffs to the United States or to otherwise provide them with hearings that satisfy the requirements of due process.”
The Obama judge indicated that the Venezuelans needn’t demonstrate that the president’s AEA invocation was unlawful but rather that their designation as alien enemies was incorrect.
“The merits of Plaintiffs’ due-process claim are easily resolved,” he wrote. “Even if the AEA was properly invoked as a general matter, it is beyond cavil that designated ‘alien enemies’ under that act must be afforded some process to contest their designation. … Here, Plaintiffs received none.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the suspected foreign gangsters, said in a statement, “This administration cannot escape judicial scrutiny of its policies, which has been its goal all along.”
The ACLU noted further that “this is an important ruling for these men who were tortured, and for the rule of law.”
Blaze News has reached out to the White House for comment.
Rob Luther, a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, said in response to the ruling, “I predict that in 2026, Judge Boasberg will make history as the 16th judge impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives.”
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) introduced articles of impeachment against Boasberg on Nov. 4, stating, “Chief Judge Boasberg has compromised the impartiality of the judiciary and created a constitutional crisis.”
A simple majority is needed to pass articles of impeachment for a judge in the House, where Republicans hold a slim majority.
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