Boasberg orders Trump to bring back CECOT migrant class deported in March

A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to provide due process to a class of Venezuelan migrants deported to El Salvador in March, and gave it two weeks to detail how it would do so — setting up a new high-stakes clash between the White House and federal courts.

In March, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to halt its plan to immediately use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to quickly deport hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to CECOT, a maximum-security Salvadoran prison. This did not happen and the planes landed in El Salvador a few hours later.

Boasberg concluded that the Trump administration’s actions were illegal, carried out in contempt of court, and deprived CECOT class migrants of their due process protections – including notice of deportation, a “meaningful opportunity” to challenge their removal from the United States, and the ability to challenge their designation as a member of the Tren de Aragua gang.

He ordered the Trump administration to submit to the court by Jan. 5 its plan to provide due process protections for the CECOT class — which, he said, the administration could do either by returning migrants to the United States to have their cases heard in person or by otherwise facilitating hearings overseas with members of the class who “meet the requirements of due process.”

“On the merits, the Court finds that this class has been denied its right to due process and will therefore ask the government to facilitate its ability to obtain such a hearing,” Boasberg said Monday. “Our law demands no less.”

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Judge James E. Boasberg stands for a portrait at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images))

The Justice Department is almost certain to appeal the order.

Monday’s ruling adds new clarity to a complex immigration case that began 10 months ago and has sparked a wave of appeals, contempt investigations and open questions about the status of the CECOT plaintiffs and the United States’ ability to order their return.

Boasberg said Monday that the United States appeared to be acting knowing it was exercising some level of constructive custody over migrants held at CECOT, citing the terms of an agreement between the United States and El Salvador to house the migrants for at least a year.

He also cited multiple public remarks from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other senior DHS officials that appear to portray CECOT as an “extension” of U.S. detention centers.

“These statements strongly undermine the government’s assertion that El Salvador retains complete discretion over what to do with individuals” returned from the United States, he stressed.

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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is recognized as President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the White House Rose Garden. (AP/Mark Schiefelbein)

If “it were enough to secretly send individuals to another country to neutralize the Great Text, then the government could “take anyone off the street, hand them over to a foreign country, and then effectively prohibit any corrective action,” Boasberg concluded.

This update comes after the court’s investigation was stalled for months, both by appeals court rulings, efforts to hide certain information from the court for national security purposes, and a separate, but related, contempt investigation.

The CECOT migrants were transferred again in July from the Salvadoran prison to Venezuela as part of a broader prisoner exchange that involved the return of at least 10 Americans detained in Venezuela. The step further complicated efforts to determine the status of migrants, some of whom had fled Venezuela and were in hiding.

That made it difficult to contact migrants in the CECOT class and determine how many of them still wanted to continue with their due process, as ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, told Boasberg in court last month.

The ACLU said this month that of the 252 Venezuelan migrants deported to CECOT in March, 137 of them still wanted to move forward through due process.

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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorist Containment Center (CECOT), March 26, 2025. (Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

Still, the new ruling is almost certain to face fierce opposition from Trump officials, who have attacked Boasberg and other judges who have blocked or suspended the president’s wave of executive orders as “rogue and activist” judges who they say are overstepping their authority.

They argue that lower court judges should not have the power to stop the president from carrying out what administration officials consider to be a lawful agenda — although the judges in question disagree that the president’s actions are all within the law.

Boasberg, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court, appears unfazed by the new level of scrutiny.

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He told the Justice Department in November that he “certainly intended to determine what happened” the day the government intentionally or unintentionally violated his emergency executive order intended to stop Alien Enemies Act deportations.

The government, he said, “can help me as much as it wants.”