Judge Finds Probable Cause to Hold Government in Contempt Regarding Alien Enemies Act

Federal District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled there is probable cause to find Donald Trump’s regime in criminal contempt of court for violating his order immediately pause deportations done via the Alien Enemies Act.

Boasberg’s temporary restraining order in mid-March included specifying that aircraft in flight to expel people to a third country must be turned around so that the people aboard could have due process. The flights continued and another flight took off.

He said:

[…] those individuals were on planes being flown overseas, having been spirited out of the United States by the Government before they could vindicate their due-process rights by contesting their removability in a federal court, as the law requires.

The Court ultimately determines that the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt. The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory.

Boasberg set a deadline of 23 April for federal lawyers to attempt to “purge their contempt” and prove they did not violate his TRO, or identify the person(s) who chose to continue deportations using the Alien Enemies Act against his order and who will be referred by Boasberg for prosecution.

Criminal contempt of court carries a fine or prison sentence. It can be appealed or pardoned. Civil contempt cannot be pardoned.

Boasberg’s opinion included:

The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders—especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it. To permit such officials to freely ‘annul the judgments of the courts of the United States’ would not just ‘destroy the rights acquired under those judgments’; it would make ‘a solemn mockery’ of ‘the constitution itself.’

He quoted Chief Justice John Marshall there.

The regime plans to appeal.

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