Trump's Violations of Court Orders — What We Can Do

For more on key issues moving through the courts, see Court Accountability’s tracker.

What’s Happening?

The Trump administration willfully ignored a court order, and Trump is now joining Elon Musk in calling for the impeachment of judges who have ruled against them. In response, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a statement: “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

The “normal appellate review process” ends, of course, at the U.S. Supreme Court. But we don’t need to wait and see whether Roberts will hand Trump another huge victory, like last year’s notorious immunity ruling, or whether Trump will defy a Supreme Court ruling against him, to recognize that the constitutional crisis is already here.

What’s the Backstory?

On Saturday, March 15, Trump invoked the wartime “Alien Enemies Act” (AEA) to expel 238 immigrants living in the U.S. that the administration claimed—with seemingly little or no proof— were part of a “foreign terrorist” gang called Tren de Aragua (TdA), which is not operated by the government of Venezuela but originated there. The AEA, drafted in 1798, was infamously cited to imprison Americans of Japanese descent in internment camps after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Congress later issued an official apology for these orders.

On Saturday evening, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg issued an unambiguous order to the Justice Department: “You shall inform your clients of this immediately, and that any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States,” along with a temporary restraining order barring the Department of Homeland Security from removing those 238 people from the U.S. until further proceedings could be held about their legal rights.

The Trump administration ignored that court order and continued to transport them to El Salvador, which plans to hold them for at least a year in a notoriously brutal mega-prison.

On Monday, the Justice Department told Judge Boasberg that the administration had not violated the court order, audaciously asserting that the oral order he gave from the bench was not binding and that the court had no jurisdiction over the migrants once the planes were above international waters. Boasberg rebuffed those assertions as contrary to long-standing legal precedents and ordered DOJ to provide additional answers before a hearing on Friday.

DOJ did not provide answers to most of the judge’s questions, but DHS’s Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations, Robert L. Cerna, did make the stunning admission that many of the alleged TdA members “removed under the AEA do not have criminal records in the United States.” Cerna also implied that the absence of a criminal record was itself somehow proof of “the risk they pose” for crimes they had not yet had the opportunity to commit “because they have only been in the United States for a short period of time.”

This absurd claim flouts core principles of due process, but it follows Trump’s Executive Order, which calls for removing individuals without a personal review or independent examination of the reasons and their rights. But the AEA by its plain language requires a “declared war” or “an invasion” by a “hostile nation” to justify its application.

As the ACLU and Democracy Forward wrote in their complaint to the court:

“[T]he AEA has only ever been a power invoked in time of war, and plainly only applies to warlike actions: it cannot be used here against nationals of a country— Venezuela—with whom the United States is not at war, which is not invading the United States, and which has not launched a predatory incursion into the United States.”

Even though Judge Boasberg has not yet ruled on the merits of the assertion that the AEA allows the mass removal of people, at this preliminary stage in the proceedings, Trump declared that the judge “should be IMPEACHED!” That demand echoed the tweet of his billionaire backer, Elon Musk.

What’s the Broader Context?

For years, ultra-rich reactionary donors have worked to capture our courts to impose a regressive vision of the Constitution on America, all while lining their own pockets. They have underwritten a pipeline to power for right-wing lawyers seeking to limit our rights and reshaped the Court’s makeup through multi-million dollar political campaigns that installed Chief Justice Roberts and his MAGA majority. And Roberts orchestrated the unprecedented ruling last year that gave Trump king-like powers to act with immunity from criminal prosecution for any of his “official acts,” opening the door for the chaos he is wreaking today.

Is Roberts’ statement criticizing Trump’s calls for impeachment a “leopards eating faces” moment? Or is it a placeholder signaling that Trump’s rhetoric against judges is not necessary or helpful because, by and large, the Roberts majority will rule for Trump upon “appellate review”? Is Roberts’ rebuke just another example of him—the same man Trump warmly thanked at the State of the Union (saying “I won’t forget it”)—trying to lower the political temperature as he finds ways to rule for Trump again? Some of Trump’s closest advisors, like Stephen Miller and Musk himself, have suggested that they know the Roberts Court will rule in Trump’s favor on his expansive assertion of unilateral executive power.

Why Does It Matter?

Trump is claiming the power of a king, and attacking anyone who won’t stand aside, including any judge who won’t weaponize the power of the judiciary to give Trump what he wants.

Under cover of fighting criminal foreign gangs, he is jettisoning due process protections for anyone the administration designates, without proof of having committed any crimes. Under cover of fighting “faceless bureaucrats” and “inefficiency,” Trump is seizing Congress’s power of the purse, destroying people’s livelihoods and leaving thousands—including children—to die.

The brave advocates bringing lawsuits against Trump 2.0 understand what’s at stake. Many federal judges have understood the stakes as well—and are now being targeted for impeachment or worse. But as Roberts’s plea makes clear, the courts will not save us, and these legal battles can only be understood as a means towards how We, the People, determine how this all ends. Trump will likely treat any court orders against him, up to and including any from the Supreme Court, as a violation of his supposed electoral mandate. Those fighting for our constitutional republic must not count on Chief Justice Roberts to deliver our democracy from the constitutional crisis that he willfully facilitated.

What Can You Do?

• Contact your members of Congress and let them know that you expect them to fight to protect the people’s power and ensure Americans’ freedoms, public services, and jobs are protected.

  • Find your representative’s contact information here.

  • Find your senator’s contact information here.

  • Learn more from Indivisible about how to make your voice heard by attending and speaking at town halls.

• Share resources on immigrants’ rights and calls to action from the ACLU, United We Dream, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, and others.

• If you’re working to protect and strengthen democracy and need services related to physical security, cybersecurity, crisis communications, or legal advice and representation, learn about the Democracy Protection Network here.

---

For more expert legal analysis like this, subscribe to Court Accountability’s Titled Scales Substack.