The Trump Administration Just Disregarded a Court Order to Stop Deportations
A review of breaking news around this fresh constitutional crisis as a follow-up to last week's analysis of Treasury's financial surveillance program and its intersection with the Alien Enemies Act.
The Trump administration has just moved forward with extraordinary measures targeting immigrant communities in flagrant defiance of a court order.
As I noted in my original analysis last week, the Treasury Department's expansion of financial surveillance along the border came "just days before Trump considered invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798—a wartime authority that would dramatically expand his executive power to target and remove non-citizens." I warned that while administration officials contended the law's application would focus on members of the criminal gang Tren de Aragua, "immigration attorneys will note the language of both the executive order and the underlying statute contains few limiting principles."
That prediction has now materialized with remarkable speed into a direct confrontation between presidential authority and judicial oversight.
On Saturday evening, Federal Judge James Boasberg issued an unambiguous order temporarily blocking the Trump administration from deporting individuals under the Alien Enemies Act for 14 days.
Politico's coverage provides the most detailed account of the timing and wording of this order. According to their reporting, at approximately 6:45 p.m. Saturday, Boasberg explicitly directed: "Any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States however that is accomplished. Make sure it's complied with immediately."
What makes this situation particularly striking is that, according to Politico, the deportation flight in question left Harlingen, Texas during a break in Boasberg's hearing—a break specifically called to allow a Justice Department lawyer to check whether any deportation flights were imminent or underway. When the hearing resumed and the order was issued, flight tracking data showed the plane was approximately "an hour and 15 minutes from landing in San Salvador."
By Sunday morning, a flurry of tweets had emerged suggesting this was no accident.
First, Elon Musk retweeted Congressman Brandon Gill’s tweet at 4:56AM stating, “I’ll be filing Articles of Impeachment against activist judge James Boasberg this week” alongside his own commentary, the single word “Necessary”. Musk has a known history of threatening judges, and several outlets including Reuters and the New York Times have recently reported on the rise of threats associated with his and allies’ recent statements targeting the judiciary.
Three hours later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on X that "hundreds of violent criminals were sent out of our country," specifically noting that "as promised by @POTUS, we sent over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua" to El Salvador.
Less than 15 minutes prior to Rubio’s tweet, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele had posted a screenshot of a story from the New York Post referring to the judge’s order alongside the mocking caption: "Oopsie... too late” and a laughing emoji.
Secretary Rubio then retweeted another of Bukele’s tweets explaining the detainees’ arrival in his country as a positive development with the added text, “Thank you for your assistance and friendship, President Bukele.”
Media Framing and Legal Implications
The media's framing of these events reveals significant differences in how news organizations are approaching what appears to be yet another constitutional crisis. Despite its sparse coverage thus far initially entirely of a single paragraph within a Live News update, then a brief update to the same, the New York Times has characterized the situation directly in its headline, noting deportations have occurred "in Face of Judge's Order," while providing basic context about the obscure 1798 law being invoked.
Their subsequent update succinctly noted, “The flight raises questions about whether the Trump administration ignored an explicit court order.”
Politico's coverage has perhaps initially been the most direct, stating that the episode "fueled doubts about the ability of the U.S. court system to constrain the Trump administration's actions" and noting that statements from Bukele and Trump allies "contributed to an air of fecklessness around the U.S. legal system in Trump's second term."
Forbes' more expansive coverage raises the central question: "Did Trump Administration Defy Immigration Court Order?" Their reporting notes the critical timing issue—while it remains unclear exactly when deportation flights departed, the fact that El Salvador is two time zones behind the U.S. and Bukele's video shows migrants arriving at night suggests the transfers may indeed have occurred after Boasberg's ruling.
CNN's coverage describes the administration as having "said Sunday that hundreds of individuals were deported from the country after President Donald Trump invoked a sweeping wartime authority," but stops short of explicitly characterizing this as defiance of the court order. Their reporting includes White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's statement that nearly 300 members of Tren de Aragua had been arrested and "extracted and removed to El Salvador."
Similarly, the BBC stopped short of stating the Trump administration had acted in defiance of the order, stating instead, “An ACLU lawyer had told the New York Times he believed there were two planes of Venezuelan immigrants in the air on Sunday. The BBC has not verified that report.” The disclaimer is telling.
What is particularly notable is how GOP officials have responded to questions about the legal implications. When CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Republican Senator Mike Rounds about whether the administration violated the court order, he deflected, saying "we don't know if that happened that way."
Watch:
Forbes reported that when directly asked about potential court order violations, Karoline Leavitt stated on Fox News that "Everything President Trump is doing is within his executive authority" and repeating her oft-used line that federal judges are "acting as activists, not real arbiters of the law."
Watch:
Video source: Aaron Rupar/X
Leavitt’s unofficial communication on Fox News appears to imply intentional disregard of the judicial branch, even as she has used her official lectern and press statements to claim the law will be followed.
As further prelude to these efforts, Vice President JD Vance posted, “Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power” on X in February.
Due Process and Mistaken Identity Concerns
Further deepening the controversy is Forbes' reporting on potential misidentifications among those swept up in the deportations. Immigration attorneys have alleged that some individuals targeted as Tren de Aragua members had no ties to the gang. The lawsuit that prompted Boasberg's order was brought on behalf of migrants who claimed they were incorrectly identified, including several who had sought asylum specifically because they feared victimization by the gang.
One particularly troubling case cited by Forbes involves an LGBTQ artist from Venezuela whom ICE had allegedly falsely labeled as a gang member based on his tattoos. According to Lindsay Toczylowski of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, this individual has "been disappeared" prior to a scheduled hearing where evidence of his innocence was to be presented.
The Financial Surveillance Connection
These developments cast the Treasury Department's recent financial surveillance expansion in an even more troubling light. What I described as a "pilot program for a new kind of surveillance state" now appears to be operating alongside extraordinary executive actions that not only bypass judicial review but potentially defy it outright.
If court orders can be disregarded in deportation cases, what legal protections remain for the financial privacy of border communities now caught in the Treasury's expansive dragnet? The Geographic Targeting Order lowering money transfer reporting thresholds from $10,000 to $200 in thirty border ZIP codes increasingly appears to be just one component of a comprehensive strategy which previously operated with limited judicial constraint or democratic oversight, but now appears to be disregarding judicial authority entirely.
Constitutional Implications
The administration's actions present yet another profound test of American constitutional governance. While the executive branch has always possessed significant authority in immigration matters, the apparent willingness to proceed with deportations despite a federal court order strikes at the heart of the separation of powers doctrine.
Most concerning is the precedent this may establish. If the administration faces no meaningful consequences for what appears to be a deliberate circumvention of judicial authority, it signals that executive actions in the immigration sphere might function beyond the reach of judicial review—effectively creating a zone of executive action immune from constitutional constraint.
The $6 million payment to El Salvador to house deportees at the notorious CECOT prison—a facility where, according to CNN's reporting, inmates are locked in crowded cells with "no privacy, comfort or even an indication that the prisoners will ever be released"—further demonstrates the administration's willingness to outsource detention to circumvent domestic legal constraints.
As these events continue to unfold, the central question becomes not just about immigration policy or financial surveillance mechanisms, but about the rule of law itself. If courts cannot effectively restrain executive action when it exceeds constitutional boundaries, then the legal framework upon which our system of governance rests will continue its current trajectory of dangerous instability.
I will continue monitoring these developments with particular attention to whether accountability mechanisms engage to address what appears to be the Trump administration’s most direct challenge to judicial authority to date, and whether our institutions will prove resilient enough to withstand this constitutional stress test.