Deportation flights have been cleared for takeoff as two Trump-appointed judges blocked attempts to pause proceedings over the use of an obscure wartime law.
James Boasberg, chief judge of the Washington D.C. district court, has been attempting to pursue contempt proceedings against the Trump administration over its defiance of court orders to halt mass deportation flights, including Boasberg’s order to turn back planeloads of migrants being deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison last month.
In a 2-1 decision, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an administrative stay on Friday, pausing those contempt proceedings. Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, both Trump appointees, sided with the administration while Judge Nina Pillard, who was appointed by Obama, voted against.
The pause on the lower court’s effort to hold the government accountable for potentially violating prior rulings prevents Boasberg from intervening in the attempted deportation of two Venezuelan men detained in Texas. The men are slated for rapid removal under the Alien Enemies Act—a 1798 law last used widely during World War II to expel nationals of enemy states.
On Friday, Boasberg said that a recent Supreme Court decision had stripped him of jurisdiction to intervene. “I am sympathetic to everything you’re saying, I just don’t think I have the power to do anything,” he said at an emergency hearing on Friday regarding the matter. The migrants are being held in Texas, which has been ruled to be outside of his court’s authority.
The Department of Homeland Security has said that no deportation flights are currently scheduled, but that it maintains the right to carry them out at any time.
Migrants’ lawyers, watching how the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was carried out, are warning their clients that removals could happen imminently without recourse or review.
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