The Trump administration filed a notice on April 17 that it was appealing U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s April 16 order in which he found probable cause that the government was in contempt of his prior order prohibiting deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.
Shortly after Boasberg’s order of April 16, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung announced a forthcoming appeal and said the president was “100 percent committed to ensuring that terrorists and criminal illegal migrants are no longer a threat to Americans and their communities across the country.”
The lawsuit centers on President Donald Trump’s decision to apply the Alien Enemies Act to members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Boasberg entered two orders blocking removals under that proclamation, but the Supreme Court vacated those orders in early April.
Boasberg has nonetheless said the Supreme Court’s decision was irrelevant to tackling whether the administration was in contempt for not complying with his prohibition at the time he made it. On April 17, he set another hearing for May 7 after the plaintiffs, who include Venezuelan nationals, made another request for a temporary restraining order against the administration.
The plaintiffs’ new request is multifaceted and includes the stated intention to bring habeas challenges for individuals detained at CECOT, El Salvador’s high security prison for gang members.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the plaintiffs not only erred by bringing their lawsuit under a legal avenue different from habeas but by bringing it in the wrong court as well. “The detainees are confined in Texas, so venue is improper in the District of Columbia,” the high court ruled.
In their April 16 motion for a new temporary restraining order, attorneys for the plaintiffs stated that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia was the proper court for individuals detained at CECOT. They pointed to a previous court decision regarding habeas challenges for a Guantanamo Bay detainee. Their motion followed Boasberg’s order, which stated that the administration could “purge” its contempt of his order by asserting custody over the individuals it removed from the country.
The plaintiffs also asked Boasberg to expand the prior class certification to include individuals who were subject to Trump’s proclamation “whether they are detained or not.”
Their proposed restraining order would require the administration to provide 30 days’ notice before seeking to remove any class members under Trump’s proclamation. Doing so would not violate the Supreme Court’s ruling, they argued, because it did not require that notice claims be brought under habeas.
“Without proper notice, most class members will be removed without ever being able to seek habeas relief, contrary to what the Supreme Court unanimously ruled was their constitutional entitlement,” the motion reads.
Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, multiple habeas challenges have been filed in other districts with restraining orders coming from the Southern District of New York and the Southern District of Texas. According to the April 16 motion, attorneys have filed habeas petitions in at least four other districts.
