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The flights, this past March, have become a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation strategy, and his administration’s pattern of apparently defying court orders.
Kelly Rissmanin New YorkWednesday 26 November 2025 15:29 GMTComments
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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was behind a decision not to turn deportation flights around after a judge’s order, Justice Department lawyers revealed this week.
Tuesday’s court filing marked the first time the U.S. government revealed who was responsible for handing accused Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s March order to turn the flights around. The government's refusal to do so has led to a criminal contempt inquiry, which Boasberg said he was moving forward with last week.
The flights, this past March, have become a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation strategy, and his administration’s pattern of defying court orders, according to some judges.
The DOJ explained this week that after the judge ordered the flights to return to the U.S., Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and another DOJ official, provided Homeland Security Acting General Counsel Joseph Mazzara with “legal advice” related to the planes that had already taken off. Mazzara then passed that information along to Noem.
“After receiving that legal advice, Secretary Noem directed that the AEA [Alien Enemies Act] detainees who had been removed from the United States before the Court’s order could be transferred to the custody of El Salvador,” the DOJ lawyers wrote.
open image in galleryHomeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was behind a decision not to turn deportation flights around after a judge’s order, Justice Department lawyers revealed this week. (AP)The Independent has asked the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
The DOJ insisted that Noem’s decision “was lawful and was consistent with a reasonable interpretation of the Court’s order.”
The government has maintained that it did not violate the court’s March 15 order. Regarding Judge Boasberg’s contempt inquiry, DOJ lawyers said “no further proceedings are warranted or appropriate.”
In March, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for the fourth time in U.S. history, stating “all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of [Tren de Aragua], are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.”
More than 200 Venezuelan men were on board planes, bound for El Salvador and the country’s notorious CECOT prison, when the American Civil Liberties Union challenged their removal.
open image in galleryHundreds of Venezuelan men, accused by the Trump administration of being gang members, were removed from the U.S. and sent to El Salvador earlier this year (Getty Images)Boasberg ordered the government to temporarily halt their removals, including turning around flights that were midair.
The government has argued that there were discrepancies between the judge’s oral directives at the hearing, and his written order produced shortly after.
While Boasberg’s oral directives stated that removed class members “need to be returned to the United States,” the judge’s written order “said nothing about returning class members who had already been removed,” the DOJ lawyers wrote in the Tuesday filing.
In April, Boasberg said the government’s failure to return those flights to the shows “a willful disregard” that is “sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.”
A divided federal appeals court in August tossed Boasberg’s bid to pursue criminal contempt. A separate panel this month found that the judge could continue with his inquiry.
"The district court's order here was a measured and essential response to what it reasonably perceived as shocking executive branch conduct," the panel wrote.
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