A court filing from Justice Department lawyers says Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered that hundreds of Venezuelan men removed from the United States in March be handed over to El Salvador, despite a federal judge’s earlier directive to turn the deportation flights around.
The filing, submitted Tuesday, states that Justice Department and DHS officials provided legal advice to Noem after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued an oral instruction and then a written order aimed at blocking the removals under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA). According to DOJ, “after receiving that legal advice, Secretary Noem directed that the AEA detainees who had been removed from the United States before the Court’s order could be transferred to the custody of El Salvador.”
The memo says the legal guidance was delivered to DHS acting general counsel Joseph Mazzara by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and former senior DOJ official Emil Bove, and was then relayed to Noem.
The filing arrives as Judge Boasberg moves forward with a contempt inquiry into whether officials in the Trump administration violated his March order. In March, the administration invoked the AEA—an 18th-century wartime statute that limits noncitizens’ procedural protections—to deport two planeloads of alleged gang members to the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador. The government contended the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua operates as a “hybrid criminal state” posing an invasion threat to the United States.
At a March 15 hearing, Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order and directed that the flights be returned. Justice Department attorneys later argued that the judge’s oral direction was defective, and the government proceeded with the deportations.
On Tuesday, DOJ argued the legal advice given to Noem did not violate the court order or amount to contempt. The department said the written order did not require return of detainees who had already been removed and that the earlier oral directive was not a binding injunction, particularly after the issuance of the written order.
Boasberg’s initial finding that the administration likely acted in contempt was stayed for months by an appeals court emergency order. Last Friday, a federal appeals court declined to reinstate Boasberg’s original injunction but allowed him to continue a fact-finding inquiry into the events.