Trump defies court orders on deportation, judges launch investigations

Judges have called out the White House's disregard for their rulings against the deportation flight to El Salvador carrying US citizen Abrego Garcia

Two judges in Washington and Maryland have launched formal investigations into whether top Trump officials deliberately defied court orders related to controversial deportation flights to El Salvador, The New York Times reported on Friday.

 

Judges James E Boasberg and Paula Xinis — both overseeing separate aspects of the deportation cases — have raised serious concerns about the White House’s apparent disregard for their rulings. They suspect government officials may have acted in “bad faith” and are initiating probing inquiries to identify those responsible.

 

Conservative judge raises alarm on due process

Judge J Harvie Wilkinson III, a conservative appointee to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, issued an order on Thursday calling for the administration to actively work toward Abrego Garcia’s release. More strikingly, Wilkinson used his ruling to sound an alarm over what he called an “incipient breakdown” in the relationship between the branches of government.

 

 

“This is a losing proposition all around,” he wrote, warning that both the judiciary and the executive risk losing public legitimacy—one through accusations of judicial activism, the other through perceptions of lawlessness.

 

Trump accuses judge of usurping president’s power

President Donald Trump has reacted defiantly. Last month on social media, he attacked Judge Boasberg and even floated the idea of his impeachment. He wrote:

 

“Judge James Boasberg is doing everything in his power to usurp the Power of the Presidency. He is a local, unknown Judge, a Grandstander, looking for publicity, and it cannot be for any other reason, because his ‘Rulings’ are so ridiculous, and inept. SAVE AMERICA!”

 

Deportees imprisoned in El Salvador

The issue revolves around the deportation of nearly 240 Central American immigrants, many of whom were flown out of the country without court hearings. Among them was Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident whose removal was expressly forbidden by a federal court order. Despite this, the administration proceeded to send him to a prison in El Salvador.

 

Administration officials admitted that Abrego Garcia’s deportation was “an administrative error”, but insisted that he was a member of the MS-13 gang—an international gang operating out of Los Angeles, California.

 

Later, Chief Policy Adviser Stephen Miller falsely asserted that Abrego Garcia had not been mistakenly deported but lawfully removed—contradicting earlier admissions. The administration has also leaned on the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act, traditionally invoked during wartime, to justify its removal of immigrants, including Venezuelans, without due process.

 

Meanwhile, in a press event at the White House, Trump claimed he was effectively powerless to comply with Judge Xinis’s order to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, while visiting Trump in the Oval Office, also refused to return the mistakenly deported US citizen. Trump and Bukele have struck a deal under which the US will pay around $6 million to El Salvador to house Venezuelan deportees for one year.

 

Court launches formal inquiry

Judge Xinis has now launched the first formal inquiry, compelling the administration to respond in writing and via depositions to questions about its conduct in the Abrego Garcia case.