Judge threatens contempt for Trump admin over El Salvador deportation flights – National & International News – WED 16Apr2025

 

Judge threatens contempt for Trump admin over El Salvador deportations.

Trump floats sending Americans to El Salvador prison.

Hamas “loses contact” with group holding US citizen in Gaza after Israeli bombing.

 

 

Judge threatens contempt for Trump admin over El Salvador deportations 

Federal District Judge James Boasberg has found probable cause to find the Trump administration in contempt over their deportations of hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador in defiance of his court’s orders. Several weeks ago, the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act and quickly shuffled hundreds of Venezuelan nationals onto planes bound for El Salvador. As those flights were being boarded, Boasberg issued an order for the planes to be turned around, as well as a restraining order on future deportation flights under the AEA. 

The Supreme Court later lifted Boasberg’s order, on the grounds that the detainees had been held in Texas while Boasberg is based in Washington DC. However, in his filing today, Boasberg said that this does not restrain him from initiating contempt proceedings against the government. 

“The government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its order, sufficient for the court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the government in criminal contempt,” Boasberg wrote. Boasberg also said that if the government refused to purge their contempt by complying, or the Department of Justice did not file the appropriate charges, he would appoint a special prosecutor.

Due process

While the Supreme Court largely sided with the government in overturning Boasberg’s order, the court stressed that each deportee must be afforded due process and reasonable notification ahead of any deportation action. 

In a separate but related decision, the court ruled in a rare 9-0 decision last week that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia who was recently deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison.

Abrego Garcia is a Salvadorian national who has been in the United States since 2011. He is married to a US citizen with whom he shares a child and is stepfather to her two children from a previous relationship. 

At the time of his deportation, Abrego Garcia was under a protective order. He has never been charged with any crime, and attorneys for the administration previously conceded that Abrego Garcia’s deportation was “an administrative error“. 

Defiance of court order 

A week after the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision, the Trump administration has made no effort to have Abrego Garcia returned. At this point, the administration is effectively in open defiance of an order from the nation’s highest court. In fact, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele visited the White House earlier this week and said that he had no plans to return Abrego Garcia. Bukele has received $6 million from the Trump administration to accept deportees.

Abrego Garcia and every deportee to CECOT are now in an administrative limbo with both the US and Salvadorian governments denying any power or responsibility to see him returned. An investigation by CBS News found that three-quarters of those deported to El Salvador had no criminal record.

Trump floats sending Americans to El Salvador 

During his meeting with President Bukele, President Trump commented that he would also like to send “homegrown criminals”, specifically US citizens, to El Salvador to be held at CECOT.

In many of its deportation actions thus far, the administration has shown a troubling disregard for due process as well as an unwillingness to rectify errors, even when ordered by a court to do so. Additionally, they have not placed a high value on evidence of wrongdoing when proceeding against migrants. Often detainees have been targeted for legally protected activities which the administration takes issue with for political reasons.

The administration has established a pattern of detaining people and quickly putting them on planes before attorneys and judges can act to restrain them. Once the deportee is out of the country, the administration then makes a show of being unable to have them returned.

Given the pattern that is emerging and Trump’s most recent statements, American citizens could hypothetically find themselves in a similar and hellish limbo – accused of a crime, detained and deported with no due process, and no way back.

Related: ICE agents smash car window to detain husband before attorney can arrive.

 

 

Hamas “loses contact” with group holding US citizen in Gaza after Israeli bombing

Hamas announced earlier this week that it had “lost contact” with the militants who was holding Israeli-American IDF soldier Edan Alexander in Gaza. Over the weekend, Al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas’ armed wing) released a video of Alexander alive, pleading for the US to push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a deal to release the remaining Israeli captives in Gaza.

While Hamas did not say when they had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander, the group said it came after “direct Israeli bombardment” of the area where he was held, which the group claimed was targeted. Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida said in a statement, “It seems that the occupation army is deliberately trying to kill him and hence relieve themselves from the pressure caused by the dual-citizen prisoners in order to continue its genocide against our people”.

Alexander’s case in particular had been a sticking point between US and Israeli officials. US officials previously held direct talks with Hamas, sidestepping Israel in an effort to have Alexander, a New Jersey native, released. The move angered Israeli officials. Since March 1, Netanyahu’s government has refused to implement the second phase of the ceasefire deal they signed in January with Hamas. The second phase calls for the full withdrawal of the Israeli military from Gaza and the release of more hostages by Hamas in an agreed-upon exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of Israeli protesters have taken to the streets to demand that Netanyahu implement the deal so that the rest of the Israeli captives can come home. Israel has also blocked all humanitarian aid, including food and water, from entering the strip since March 1, which of course also endangers the hostages.

Israel doubles down after Hamas rejects deal that wouldn’t bring peace

Earlier this week, Hamas announced it was rejecting an Israeli proposal for a 6-week ceasefire. The group says that the deal called for Hamas to disarm but provided no guarantee of a permanent withdrawal of Israeli troops occupying the territory. Hamas has expressed willingness to step down from government in Gaza but has repeatedly said disarmament of the group is a red line.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said today that the government will continue its humanitarian blockade of the Gaza Strip. In recent days, Israel has re-occupied Rafah in southern Gaza with apparent plans to permanently occupy a new corridor and other parts of the territory. Katz says that Israel plans to maintain a military presence in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria indefinitely.

Since Israel unilaterally ended the ceasefire, Israel has killed over 1,500 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and forcibly displaced over 400,000 (many for the second or third time since 2023). Mirjana Spoljaric, the head of the Red Cross, has described the current situation in Gaza as “hell on earth”. Spoljaric also spoke with alarm of an “extreme hollowing out of international law” as Israel continues to commit what many experts see as war crimes in the Gaza Strip, and international institutions fail to hold them to account.