Federal Officials Swear They Did Not Violate Judge’s Order on Deportation Flights

A federal judge ordered officials to provide more information about deportation flights carrying Venezuelans to El Salvador.

Salvadoran police officers escort alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua recently deported by the U.S. government to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison, as part of an agreement with the Salvadoran government, at the El Salvador International Airport in San Luis Talpa, El Salvador, on March 16, 2025. Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidencia/Handout via Reuters

U.S. officials said in sworn statements on March 18 that they did not violate a federal judge’s order on deportation flights, in part because the flight that left after the order was released carried Venezuelans who were being deported for other reasons.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on March 15 ordered the Trump administration not to remove illegal immigrants and other noncitizens in U.S. custody who would be subject to President Donald Trump’s proclamation invoking the Enemy Aliens Act.

The president’s proclamation that day stated that the Tren de Aragua gang has been at war with the United States and ordered their “immediate apprehension, detention, and removal.”

Boasberg’s order concerned “members of such class” who were “not otherwise subject to removal.”

After lawyers representing some of the Venezuelans raised concerns over deportation flights that may have departed after the judge’s order, the judge held a hearing to seek clarity on the timing of the flights. After the hearing, he ordered the government to provide, under oath, information showing that no people were removed solely pursuant to Trump’s declaration following his initial order.

Robert Cerna, an acting field office director for the Enforcement and Removal Operations office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said in a sworn declaration on Tuesday that the two planes carrying Venezuelans left for El Salvador and exited U.S. airspace before Boasberg’s order was released.

The third flight, he said, departed after the order came in, but all of the passengers had removal orders from immigration judges and none were removed “solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue.”

Cerna also said that ICE did not act on the proclamation until after it was posted by the White House online on March 15, even though it appeared to have been signed on March 14.

Boasberg had sought more information about when the proclamation was signed, when it was made public, and when it took effect.

He also asked the government to estimate how many people subject to the proclamation are still within the United States.

Cerna said that 54 members of Tren de Aragua are in ICE custody, another 172 are being monitored by ICE but are not in ICE custody, and an additional 32 are being held by other law enforcement due to an arrest or conviction for a crime.

“Should they be transferred to ICE custody, they will likely be placed in removal proceedings,” Cerna said.

In a separate filing lodged on Monday, Cerna said that members of the gang pose a threat to Americans and detailed how some of the deportees had been charged with serious crimes such as murder, kidnapping, and assault.

Michael Kozak, a State Department official, also told the judge in a declaration that high-level negotiations had taken place between U.S. government officials, El Salvador, and Venezuela. As a result, those countries agreed to the removal of some Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador and Venezuela.

U.S. foreign policy would suffer if the removal was prevented, “taking into account the significant time and energy expended over several weeks by high-level U.S. government officials and the possibility that foreign interlocutors might change their minds regarding their willingness to accept certain individuals associated with [Tren de Aragua] removed or might otherwise seek to leverage this as an ongoing issue,” he wrote.

Responding to the final prong of the judge’s order, U.S. lawyers said that the government should not have to provide any more particulars as to the flights that were in the air or departed after the judge’s order.

“The Government maintains that there is no justification to order the provision of additional information, and that doing so would be inappropriate, because even accepting Plaintiffs’ account of the facts, there was no violation of the Court’s written order,” they wrote.

“Moreover, given that the Government’s motion for a stay remains pending before the D.C. Circuit, the Government should not be required to disclose sensitive information bearing on national security and foreign relations until that motion is resolved, especially given that this information is neither material nor time-sensitive.”

The lawyers did say that they would offer more details in camera if the judge insists.

Boasberg said in response that by noon on March 19, the government must file a declaration under seal, listing more details about the flights that left U.S. airspace before his order, including the time they landed in a foreign country.