Plaintiffs Urge Judge to Address Federal Government’s Possible Violation of Federal Court Order

Deportation flights discharged illegal immigrants even after a judge said the immigrants should be brought back to the United States.

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One on March 16, 2025. Brendaon Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

Plaintiffs in a legal case against the U.S. government on March 17 urged a federal judge to seek answers from the government regarding compliance with President Donald Trump’s orders on deportation flights.

“Plaintiffs remain extremely concerned that ... the government may have violated the Court’s command,” lawyers for Venezuelan immigrants told U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in a filing.

The judge in a March 15 order told government officials not to remove any of the immigrants from the United States for 14 days absent additional direction from the court. During a hearing that day, according to the plaintiffs, the judge told government officials that any plane carrying the illegal immigrants “that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States, but those people need to be returned to the United States.”

Later Saturday, Boasberg in a second order blocked the government from deporting any noncitizen gang members as the case proceeds.

In a Sunday filing, government officials told Boasberg that they had not removed the five illegal immigrants subject to the first order.

“Federal Defendants further report, based on information from the Department of Homeland Security, that some gang members subject to removal under the Proclamation had already been removed from United States territory under the Proclamation before the issuance of this Court’s second order,” the officials said.

Trump in a March 15 proclamation invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which enables expulsion of people from a nation deemed by a president as an enemy, and declared the gang Tren de Aragua had illegally infiltrated the United States.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement over the weekend that the order from the judge “had no lawful basis” and that the order was also issued after gang member illegal immigrants had already been removed from U.S. territory.

“The Administration did not ’refuse to comply' with a court order,” she said, adding later that “the written order and the Administration’s actions do not conflict.”

Leavitt also said that judges do not have jurisdiction over the president’s usage of the Alien Enemies Act or the president’s conduct of foreign affairs.

“A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft ... full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil,” she said.

The plaintiffs in the case said in the new filing that the phrasing utilized by the government indicated the government opted to treat Boasberg’s order as only applying to illegal immigrants still within the United States.

“If that is how the government proceeded, it was a blatant violation of the Court’s Order,” they said.

They pointed to flight tracking data that showed several flights that landed after Boasberg’s order. One of the flights landed in El Salvador.

They also cited how El Salvador President Nayib Bukele wrote on social media that the judge’s order came too late and how U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared the post.

The available evidence shows “the government may have chosen not to abide by the Court’s Order,” the plaintiffs said, urging the court to direct government officials to certify whether any flights with people subject to the court’s directives took off, were still in the air, or landed after the orders were issued. The officials, they said, should also say whether any of the illegal immigrants were transferred to a foreign country after the orders were handed down.

Boasberg said later on Monday that the parties must appear for a hearing at 4 p.m. to brief him on the deportations.