'BUT YOUR HONOR, THEY WERE ALL PUT IN AN ASSISTED LIVING FACILITY WITH LOTS OF WATCHFUL CARETAKERS, AND EACH ONE WAS GIVEN CLEAN UNDERWEAR AND SOCKS'

Judge goes ballistic as Trump lawyer reveals why administration ignored order to turn around deportation flight

 

By Brittany Chain 

Daily Mail

Mar 17, 2025 

 

In a tense hearing on Monday, Judge Boasberg (pictured) slammed that excuse, instead summarizing the administration's position as: 'We don't care, we'll do what we want'

 

A judge has slammed a lawyer representing the Trump administration for ignoring his order to turn around a planeload full of illegal immigrants en route to El Salvador.

More than 200 suspected gang members from the feared Tren de Aragua who were illegally living in the United States were sent to El Salvador on Sunday after Trump invoked the wartime Aliens Enemies Act.

US District Judge James Boasberg had issued an order to temporarily halt the deportations, telling Trump's lawyers in court that any plane already in the air must turn around and return to US soil.

But a later written ruling was less specific about those details, and the Trump administration claims it followed that, rather than the oral directive given in court.

In a tense hearing on Monday, Boasberg slammed that excuse, instead summarizing the administration's position as: 'We don't care, we'll do what we want.'

Justice Department attorney Abhishek Kambli said the administration 'believes that we've complied with the order.'

Boasberg hit back, saying an order is an order regardless of whether it is written or provided orally in a court room. 

'You're saying that you felt that you could disregard it because it wasn't a written order,' Boasberg said.

 

More than 200 suspected gang members from the feared Tren de Aragua who were illegally living in the United States were sent to El Salvador on Sunday after Trump invoked the wartime Aliens Enemies Act

They were already in international airspace when a federal judge abruptly blocked the Trump administration's use of an 18th century law to deport the alleged gangsters

El Salvador's leader, in a meeting last month with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, offered to house prisoners from the United States in his country

 

He called the Justice Department's argument 'a stretch.' 

Kambli was ordered to answer a series of questions about the incident, including how many people were in the air at the time his order was handed down, but he refused.

Kambli cited national security concerns, saying: 'I am only authorized to say what we have said.'

The judge ordered Kambli turn over answers by noon Tuesday, including an official explanation about why he would not disclose the information on Monday.

In a savage takedown, he said he would put these requests in a written order after the court proceedings ended, 'since apparently my oral orders don't appear to carry much weight.'

To alleviate any stress about national security concerns, Boasberg is willing to seal the administration's response, 'in part... if necessary.' 

The government had made efforts to remove Boasberg from the case, accusing him of endangering national security with his questions.

In a letter, lawyers argued: 'The Government cannot—and will not—be forced to answer sensitive questions of national security and foreign relations in a rushed posture without orderly briefing and a showing that these questions are somehow material to a live issue. Answering them, especially on the proposed timetable, is flagrantly improper and presents grave risks to the conduct of the Government in areas wholly unsuited to micromanagement supervision by a district court judge.'

Trump had celebrated as a plane carrying suspected members of the notorious Venezuelan gang touched down at a prison in El Salvador despite the judge's order.

The migrants were brought to a maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center under an agreement between Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Photos and videos Bukele shared online showed several men in handcuffs and shackles being transferred from a plane to a heavily-guarded convoy.

Once at the prison, they were seen shackled on the ground as prison guards shaved their heads.

When the plane then landed on Sunday and the gangsters were seen being led into their prison cells, Trump blamed his predecessor and the Democratic party for letting them into the country into the first place. 

'These are monsters sent into our Country by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats. How dare they!' the president posted on his Truth Social page Sunday night.

'Thank you to El Salvador, and in particular President Bukele, for your understanding of this horrible situation, which was allowed to happen to the United States because of Democrat leadership,' he continued.

'We will not forget.'

 

President Donald Trump hailed the sight of migrants arriving at a notorious Salvadoran prison on Sunday, calling them 'monsters'

The migrants were brought to the Terrorism Confinement Center under an agreement between Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and Secretary of State Marco Rubio

The president blamed Democrats for the gang's arrival in the United States

 

Rubio had also said in a separate statement that 'hundreds of violent criminals were sent out of our country.'

'I want to express my sincere gratitude to President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador for playing a pivotal role in this transfer.'

Of those now being held at the maximum security prison, 137 are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang who were deported just moments after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, declaring that the US was facing an 'invasion' from a criminal organization that has been linked to kidnapping, extortion, organized crime and contract killings.

It had been invoked only three times before during major international conflicts.  

Its most recent application was during World War II, when it was used to incarcerate Germans and Italians as well as for the mass internment of around 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-American civilians. 

The act was also used during World War I and the War of 1812.

Trump claimed he is justified in invoking the act to deport Tren de Aragua members because he claims the gang has ties to the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Under his order, all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are determined to be members of the gang, are within the United States and are not naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the country are 'liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.' 

 

Salvadoran police officers escort alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua recently deported by the U.S. government to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center

Gang members are pictured being taken to their cells on Sunday

 

The directive also notes that the notorious gang 'has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens.'  

He contended that the gang is a hostile force noting members of the gang were 'conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States' with the goal of destabilizing the nation.

'Over the years, Venezuelan national and local authorities have ceded ever-greater control over their territories to transnational criminal organizations, including TdA,' Trump said in defense of his order.

'The result is a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States, and which poses a substantial danger to the United States.'

 

The United States sent over 130 suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang

Bukele, in a meeting last month with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio , offered to house prisoners from the United States in his country

The gang has been linked to kidnapping, extortion, organized crime and contract killings

An alleged member of the Venezuelan criminal organization Tren de Aragua being shaved upon his arrival at the Terrorism Confinement Centre

 

DailyMail.com was the first news organization in the US to report on TdA arriving in America over a year ago, however, the gang became a household name after video of them storming an apartment near Denver surfaced in August.

The Trump administration has since designated Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa Cartel and six other criminal groups as global terrorist organizations.

But Boasberg ruled the Alien Enemies Act 'does not provide basis for the president's proclamation' to deport suspected gang members 'given that the terms invasion, predatory incursion really relate to hostile acts perpetrated by any nation and commensurate to war.'

At the prison, the suspected gang members will now spend 23 and a half hours locked in overcrowded cells, with just 30 minutes to stretch - chained in the middle of the hallway.

It is equipped with a system that blocks inmates from contacting the outside world with cellphones.

To enter the jail, staffers, guards and prisoners have to go through a complex registration system before they travel through three sections safeguarded by gates.

Jail cells with steel bars are split among the eight cell blocks and can hold up to 100 detainees.

Each cell comes equipped with 80 bare iron bunks - mattresses are not included - along with two toilets and two sinks.  

Every pavilion also has its own windowless cell where unruly prisoners are sent. 

Within the cells, the temperature can reach a staggering 95 degree during the day, and there is no other source of ventilation.

Stunning images taken from within the complex usually show inmates shirtless in white shorts as they attempt to keep cool.

Dubbed a 'black hole of human rights' by critics, the facility has drawn widespread condemnation for allegedly ignoring international prisoner rights.