U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Monday ordered the Trump administration to submit a plan for the return or otherwise of hearings for more than 200 migrants who were deported to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison in March.
Boasberg has certified a class representing all jailed immigrants and said the government must submit its plan to allow them to contest their designation under the Alien Enemy Act by January 5.
The Trump administration implemented it in March The AEA – an 18th-century wartime authority used to deport non-citizens without due process – deports two planes carrying alleged migrant gang members to an El Salvador prison, arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.
Boasberg released temporary restraining order and ordered that the planes be returned, but Justice Department lawyers said that his verbal instructions directing the flight to be returned were faulty, and the deportation proceeded as planned.
Boasberg later demanded contempt proceedings against the government for willfully disobeying his order, but earlier this month a federal appeals court granted the Justice Department an emergency stay on those proceedings.
More than 200 migrants deported to CECOT were sent to Venezuela in a prisoner swap in July.
Boasberg said in her order on Monday that the U.S. government “maintained constructive detention” over the migrants while they were detained at CECOT, and that their rights to due process were violated when the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemy Act to consider them members of the Tren de Aragua without allowing them to elect the designation.
Salvadoran government via Getty Images
“By granting the motion, this Court is declaring that Plaintiffs were not removed in the manner they should have been removed, with virtually no notice and no opportunity to challenge the grounds for their removal, a clear violation of their due process rights,” the judge wrote.
Boasberg sided with lawyers who said El Salvador imprisoned the people partly on the orders of the United States and partly in exchange for $4.7 million.
The ruling paves the way for all migrants deported to CECOT to contest their designation as enemy aliens and Tren de Aragua members. Judge Boasberg ordered the government to submit a plan to give the men a “meaningful opportunity to contest their designation” by facilitating their return to the United States or otherwise allowing them a hearing.
He wrote, “The Government may theoretically offer a hearing without sending the plaintiff back to the United States, so long as such hearing meets the requirements of due process.”
ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, who is leading the lawsuit against AEA deportations, said people will finally get due process.
“The men endured extreme abuse, but now they will finally get the due process the Trump administration unquestioningly denied them,” Gelernt said.
Gerres Reyes Barrios, a professional soccer player and youth coach who was sent to CECOT despite his lawyer’s sworn declaration that he had no criminal record in Venezuela or the United States, told ABC News on Monday that news of the judge’s order shocked him “like a bucket of cold water.”
But while many former CECOT detainees may seek to return to the United States, Reyes Barrios said he is nowhere near ready to attempt a return because of the trauma he has experienced.
“I’ve focused my time on taking care of my daughters, training younger kids, to avoid those thoughts. At night I sometimes have nightmares and I feel like I’m still in CECOT,” Reyes Barrios, who returned to his Venezuelan hometown in July, told ABC News in Spanish on Monday. “At this time I am not ready to decide whether I want to fight this case or not.”
His attorney, Lynette Tobin, claimed that Barrios was falsely accused because of his tattoos, which depicted a crown with a rosary and the word “Dios” meaning “God” over a soccer ball. Reyes Barrios said that the tattoo was modeled after the logo of the Real Madrid football team.
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