President Donald Trump’s administration faced yet another threat of contempt of court proceedings on Wednesday over deportations to El Salvador.
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg found probable cause for contempt of court for defying his order to stop the flights with deportees.
Boasberg ruled the administration was not only defying the courts but the U.S. Constitution.
“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," Boasberg wrote in his ruling.
Boasberg wants the deportees out of the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, in El Salvador, and back in U.S. custody by April 23 adding that the Trump administration doesn’t “need to release” them or ”transport them" to the U.S.
“The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions,” Boasberg wrote. “None of their responses has been satisfactory.”
The Trump administration was also under threat of contempt proceedings over a Supreme Court order to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a CECOT inmate who was born in El Salvador and had been living in Maryland before his deportation in March despite a court protection order.
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, of Maryland, was in El Salvador on Wednesday to meet with Salvadoran Vice President Félix Ulloa to discuss Abrego Garcia’s case. He told reporters that there wasn’t any evidence that he had committed a crime when he was abducted.
“They should just let him go,” Van Hollen, a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee member, said during the news conference.
Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele have maintained — without releasing any evidence — that Abrego Garcia, like the other deportees held at the CECOT, is a terrorist because of his gang affiliations.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt condemned Van Hollen’s visit to El Salvador and said on Tuesday and Wednesday that the Trump administration has no intentions of freeing a dangerous M-13 member.
The Trump administration has been using a war-time law to designate some foreign gang members and narcotraffickers as terrorists. Boasberg had ruled against it because it prevented the detainees from contesting their deportation in court, but the Supreme Court sided with Trump.
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