Judge in Alien Enemies Act case defends ruling ahead of key appeals court hearing

The judge presiding over the Alien Enemies Act case on Monday denied the government's request to lift his hold on deportations under the rarely used wartime law despite President Donald Trump's repeated attacks on him and his order.

Denying the government's order to vacate his rulings, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg found that the Venezuelan nationals the administration wants to deport under the law should most likely be given the opportunity to challenge allegations that they're members of the Tren de Aragua gang first.

The decision came just hours before a federal appeals court was set to hear arguments that the deportations should be allowed to continue while it considers the government's appeal of Boasberg's ruling.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Boasberg for his March 15 emergency order temporarily halting deportations stemming from Trump's invocation of the law, which had only been used before during declared wars. The president has said in posts on his social media platform that Boasberg "is doing everything in his power to usurp the Power of the Presidency" and “doesn’t mind if criminals come into our Country."

Boasberg did not mention the Trump posts in his ruling Monday, but did note that his ruling only stayed deportations under the AEA and doesn't bar people from being detained under the act or deported under other authorities.

"It is important to stress once again that the Order was narrow: it prevented Defendants only from removing the Plaintiff class on the sole basis of the Proclamation. In other words, the Order did not prevent Defendants from removing anyone — to include members of the class — through other immigration authorities," he wrote, adding that member of Tren de Aragua are deportable under other statutes since Trump designated the gang a foreign terrorist organization.

"The Order also did not require Defendants to release a single person held in their custody, even individuals held only on the basis of the Proclamation," the judge added. "And it did not even prevent Defendants from apprehending noncitizens under the authority of the Proclamation (or any other law, for that matter)."

What his order did put limits on was deporting alleged gang members to a notoriously dangerous El Salvador prison without allowing them to contest that they're involved with the gang, as the five plaintiffs in the case have done.

The judge suggested the government had acted in bad faith in an effort to avoid such hearings. He noted two planes carrying deportees took off on March 15, despite the government's knowing about the emergency hearing on the issue before the judge, and called it "a move that implied a desire to circumvent judicial review."

The "Government knew as of 10:00 a.m. on March 15 that the Court would hold a hearing later that day, and the most reasonable inference is that it hustled people onto those planes in the hopes of evading an injunction or perhaps preventing them from requesting the habeas hearing to which the Government now acknowledges they are entitled," the judge wrote.