The Trump administration was facing a contempt investigation over its decision to conduct two deportation flights in March 2025.
Published April 14, 2026
A U.S. federal appeals court has blocked a lower court judge from proceeding with a contempt lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration over last year’s deportation of Venezuelan immigrants.
In a 2-1 decision Tuesday, the D.C. Appellate Board halted District Judge James Boasberg’s plan to hold a hearing to consider whether former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others should be held in criminal contempt.
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The majority ruled that Boasberg’s efforts amounted to a “clear abuse of discretion.”
Boasberg was trying to determine whether authorities violated a March 15, 2025, order to turn back two deportation flights to El Salvador while they were already in flight.
But Judge Neomi Rao wrote in Tuesday’s majority decision that Boasberg’s order does not explicitly prevent the Trump administration from removing immigrants to custody in El Salvador.
“The legal errors at the heart of these criminal contempt proceedings demonstrate why further investigation by the district court would be an abuse of discretion,” Rao wrote.
“Contempt only applies to clear and specific violations of orders.”
He added that Boasberg’s contempt investigation was “intrusive” and risked exposing high-level deliberations on national security and foreign affairs.
The case focuses on the Trump administration’s March 2025 expulsion of 137 Venezuelans accused of ties to the Torren de Aragua gang.
Tensions over deportation flights
The group was deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that gives the president broad powers during wartime or invasion and is rarely invoked.
Critics called the use of the law an example of presidential overreach, and immigration lawyers argued that their clients’ due process rights were violated, given the rushed nature of the deportations that precluded appeals.
They also claimed that some immigrants were unfairly accused of being gang members based solely on their clothing and tattoos.
The men spent several months in El Salvador’s high-security Confinement Center for Terrorism (CECOT) before being released to Venezuela in July 2025 as part of a prisoner exchange.
Tuesday’s decision is the latest flashpoint in a broader conflict between Boasberg and the Trump administration over deportation flights.
Boasberg suggested the administration may have acted in “malice” by hastily assembling the March 2025 deportation flights while it was conducting emergency court proceedings to assess the legality of the effort.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration accused Boasberg of being a “radical leftist lunatic” who used the bench for political purposes.
The Court of Appeal’s ruling on Tuesday was along party lines. The two justices in the majority, Judge Rao and Judge Justin Walker, were both appointed by Mr. Trump.
The dissenting vote was from Judge J. Michelle Childs, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden. Boasberg himself was nominated by former President Barack Obama.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote on social media platform
