In a striking legal standoff that now carries echoes of a constitutional crisis, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday granted an emergency motion to halt contempt hearings against Trump-era Justice Department attorneys, temporarily shielding them from testifying about the high-profile deportation of Venezuelan nationals under the Alien Enemies Act.
At the heart of the case is an extraordinary confrontation between the executive and judicial branches—one that threatens to reshape the limits of presidential authority, judicial intervention, and the boundaries of wartime deportation powers.
The controversy stems from the March deportation of two plane loads of Venezuelan nationals, allegedly affiliated with the violent Tren de Aragua gang, to El Salvador. The Trump administration invoked the rarely-used Alien Enemies Act—an 18th-century wartime statute once applied to German nationals during WWI and Japanese nationals during WWII—as justification. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, acting under this authority, classified Tren de Aragua not merely as a gang, but as a "hybrid criminal state," effectively arguing that its members constituted a foreign enemy force unlawfully operating within U.S. borders.
DC appellate court panel to Jeb Boasberg just now:
WTF dude?
Judges suggest Boasberg's criminal contempt inquiry is out of order (as DOJ did as well) and wants to know why he's pursuing an "indirect" contempt charge without first referring for prosecution per federal criminal… pic.twitter.com/QsDI1GfWaD
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) December 15, 2025
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued a verbal restraining order to halt the deportations. But rather than reverse course, the administration pressed forward, arguing that Boasberg’s order lacked the legal clarity and procedural form required to override a presidentially authorized deportation operation. The flights landed in El Salvador. The detainees were delivered to the sprawling CECOT prison, the largest—and arguably most feared—penal complex in Latin America.
Boasberg, furious, ordered top DOJ officials Drew Ensign and Erez Reuveni to testify, aiming to determine whether Noem or other senior officials willfully defied his directive. The Justice Department struck back, calling the hearings a “circus” and warning they would plunge the nation into an “unseemly and unnecessary interbranch conflict.”
The DC Circuit just gave Judge Boasberg the legal version of “you might want to read the directions again before you turn that paper in.” https://t.co/myNd7P0a0W
— Rob Luther (@RobLutherLawyer) December 15, 2025
The court’s 2-1 decision to pause the hearings is more than a procedural delay—it’s a red flare fired into the sky over Washington. It signals a deepening rift over constitutional boundaries: Who gets the final say in national security deportations—the president and his executive agencies, or the judiciary? And how enforceable is a verbal restraining order against a wartime deportation under a law that predates the Civil War?
More troubling still, this case illustrates the evolving legal architecture of the immigration-security nexus. By framing Tren de Aragua as a non-state invading force—akin to a hostile army—the Trump administration is drawing a line between criminal immigration and national defense. If upheld, that legal theory could reset the nation’s posture toward transnational crime syndicates masquerading as political refugees.
