Judge Orders More Info From Trump Admin on Deportations

The judge refrained from issuing a ruling on whether the administration had defied his order stopping deportations of alleged foreign criminal gang members.

Salvadoran police officers escort alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua recently deported by the U.S. government to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison, as part of an agreement with the Salvadoran government, at the El Salvador International Airport in San Luis Talpa, El Salvador, on March 16, 2025. Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidencia/Handout via Reuters

WASHINGTON—U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to provide additional information on its implementation of the president’s decision to speed up deportations of purported Venezuelan gang members by applying a centuries-old law known as the Alien Enemies Act.

The order came alongside a March 17 hearing in which Boasberg scrutinized whether the administration had complied with an order he issued two days beforehand that prohibited deportations authorized by Trump’s March 15 proclamation, which invoked the Enemies Act. A group of anonymous Venezuelan nationals sued in anticipation of the proclamation and later alleged that the administration had flouted Boasberg’s March 15 order.