White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was criticized after she claimed a judge's ruling blocking President Donald Trump's deportation of migrants had "no lawful basis."
The Trump administration was already gearing up for a legal battle over the Alien Enemies Act after Trump invoked it on Saturday, clearing the way for him to deport over 250 undocumented immigrants purportedly from Venezeula with little to no due process.
The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 has been invoked only three times in U.S. history—during the War of 1812 and World Wars I and II—granting the president extraordinary authority to detain or deport foreign nationals once the U.S. is formally at war. The law was last used to justify the internment of Japanese-American civilians during World War II.
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order on Saturday to block the deportations, but DoJ attorneys informed him that two planes had already departed—one bound for El Salvador and the other for Honduras. Boasberg verbally instructed that the planes be turned around, but the directive was not followed.
Rather than outright denying that it ignored the judge’s order, the White House is instead shifting the focus to whether expelling alleged members of Tren de Aragua was justified. On Sunday, Venezuela’s government condemned Trump’s use of the law, calling it reminiscent of “the darkest episodes in human history, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps.”
In a statement posted to X, Leavitt claimed Boasberg's order has "no lawful basis," another indication of the unprecedented expansion of executive power:
"The Administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory. The written order and the Administration’s actions do not conflict."
"Moreover, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear — federal courts generally have no jurisdiction over the President’s conduct of foreign affairs, his authorities under the Alien Enemies Act, and his core Article II powers to remove foreign alien terrorists from U.S. soil and repel a declared invasion."
"A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrying foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil."
You can see what she wrote below.
Tren de Aragua, the gang at the center of Trump’s justification for the deportations, originated in an infamously lawless prison in Venezuela’s Aragua state. While the gang grew alongside the mass migration of Venezuelans fleeing economic collapse, the vast majority of those who left were simply seeking better living conditions.
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly cited the gang to paint an exaggerated picture of communities being “taken over” by criminals, despite evidence that only a small number of individuals were involved in such activities.
The Trump administration has not provided evidence that those deported were members of Tren de Aragua or had committed crimes in the U.S. Among those expelled were two high-ranking members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang who had been arrested in the U.S.
Video released by El Salvador’s government on Sunday showed shackled men exiting airplanes onto an airport tarmac lined with riot police. The footage also depicted the men being transported to prison in a heavily guarded convoy of buses, military vehicles, and at least one helicopter. Upon arrival, they were seen kneeling on the ground as their heads were shaved before changing into the prison’s all-white uniform before being placed in cells.
The immigrants were taken to El Salvador's CECOT facility, the centerpiece of President Nayib Bukele’s aggressive crackdown on crime, which has relied on sweeping police measures and restrictions on basic rights to pacify El Salvador’s once-violent streets.
Many condemned Leavitt's statement.
The Trump administration stated that the president signed the proclamation declaring Tren de Aragua an invading force on Friday night but did not announce it until Saturday afternoon.
Immigration lawyers, however, reported that as early as Friday night, they observed Venezuelans—who otherwise would not have been eligible for deportation under immigration law—being relocated to Texas for deportation flights. In response, they began filing lawsuits to halt the transfers.
The legal challenge that led to the deportation freeze was filed on behalf of five Venezuelans detained in Texas, who feared being falsely accused of gang membership. Attorneys warned that once the act was invoked, Trump could unilaterally declare individuals as Tren de Aragua members and expel them without due process.
On Saturday morning, Boasberg initially blocked the deportations of those five individuals. After an afternoon hearing, he broadened the order to include all detainees who could be targeted under the act. He pointed out that the law has never before been applied outside of a congressionally declared war and suggested that plaintiffs might successfully argue Trump exceeded his legal authority in invoking it.
In a statement to Axios, a dismissive Leavitt criticized political opponents, saying that "if the Democrats want to argue in favor of turning a plane full of rapists, murderers, and gangsters back to the United States, that's a fight we are more than happy to take."
Boasberg will press administration officials during a hearing today at 5pm. According to The New York Times, "lawyers for the Justice Department should be prepared to tell [Boasberg] where the flights carrying more than 200 immigrants to El Salvador over the weekend were at the time he handed down his order."
