A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has ordered the Trump administration to give hearings to 137 Venezuelans who were improperly expelled from the United States and shipped out on mass deportation flights to the Salvadoran CECOT megaprison in March under the Alien Enemies Act.
Chief Judge James Boasberg issued the 43-page order on Monday, marking the latest salvo in a back-and-forth that has unfolded for months.
In the order, Boasberg said that the fact that these Venezuelans were summarily denied due process and are already out of the country, does not give the government permission to throw up its hands and say it doesn't need to grant due process now.
"The Court finds that the only remedy that would give effect to its granting of Plaintiffs’ Motion would be to order the Government to undo the effects of their unlawful removal by facilitating a meaningful opportunity to contest their designation and the Proclamation’s validity," wrote Boasberg. "Otherwise, a finding of unlawful removal would be meaningless for Plaintiffs, who have already been sent back to Venezuela against their wishes and without due process."
"Expedited removal cannot be allowed to render this relief toothless," he continued. "If secretly spiriting individuals to another country were enough to neuter the Great Writ, then 'the Government could snatch anyone off the street, turn him over to a foreign country, and then effectively foreclose any corrective course of action.'"
This comes as Boasberg, whose recriminations of the Trump administration have led to some far-right lawmakers seeking his impeachment, has been investigating whether to pursue contempt proceedings against Trump officials who ignored his previous orders related to this case. A federal appeals panel dominated by Republican-appointed judges have temporarily stayed this.
