A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to return deported Venezuelans to the U.S. or give them another chance at legal remedies from abroad.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
A federal judge has ruled the deportations of more than 100 Venezuelans to El Salvador were illegal.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Judge James Boasberg found the U.S. government violated due process rights and that the men deserve a hearing. Early in the Trump administration, the United States deported numerous men to a prison in El Salvador after President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act. The judge’s ruling against that comes just as the detainees have received extra attention. The new head of CBS News, Bari Weiss, stopped the network from broadcasting interviews with former detainees on “60 Minutes” over the weekend. The story still streamed in Canada. And on Monday, the blocked story showed up on social media across the United States.
FADEL: NPR immigration correspondent Ximena Bustillo is covering the ruling about CECOT detainees and is with me now in the studio. Good morning.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: So just break down exactly what this order said from Judge James Boasberg.
BUSTILLO: Essentially, he has ordered the administration to return the men to the United States or provide some sort of due process hearings for them, even if that’s abroad. And it’s not necessarily clear how the government would facilitate this. The original lawsuit was brought by six men in that group mentioned earlier, and Boasberg certified the class in his order. And by doing that, they can represent the entire group of about 137 men who were removed to El Salvador. Remember, these were Venezuelan men that the Trump administration quickly removed from the country overnight back in the spring. Boasberg says that any government can’t be, quote, “secretly spiriting individuals to another country” without any oversight.
FADEL: Yeah. And it’s been very shocking to see the treatment these men say they went through in a foreign anti-terrorism prison. We’ll get into that treatment later. Just remind us, though – we mentioned the Alien Enemies Act – what legal authority the Trump administration alleged that allowed them to do this here.
BUSTILLO: Right. They say that they can use this 18th century law. Steve mentioned earlier the Alien Enemies Act. That’s a wartime power. You know, the White House has accused the men without evidence presented in court of being members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The deportations prompted several legal fights over the use of this law, and it brought to the forefront also the administration’s clashes with judges. Boasberg was among the judges to first question the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans in this way, and the judge has threatened the government with contempt for disobeying his order to stop the planes.
FADEL: There’s been a lot of legal back-and-forth here over the fate of these men. What do we know about where they are now?
BUSTILLO: You know, the men, again, were originally from Venezuela, not El Salvador. And they have since been returned to their home country after four months in the prison. And, you know, this was done as a part of a prisoner exchange with the United States. Since, they’ve recounted to NPR and other news outlets what they experienced in CECOT. And again, as you mentioned, that’s that prison in El Salvador. And this includes poor nutrition, unsanitary conditions and even sexual abuse. One man spoke with my colleague Sergio Martínez-Beltrán and described CECOT as, quote, “hell on Earth.”
FADEL: And where does the case go from here?
BUSTILLO: You know, it’s likely that the government will move forward with appealing the decision, though we have not received an immediate respond to a request for comment. Lawyers for the men say this ruling makes it, quote, “clear the government can’t just send people off.” You know, one other thing to watch for is the Trump administration’s political rhetoric around this case because Boasberg has been among the judges to receive the ire of Trump. And this is among the cases where the Trump administration has accused judges of being activists and wielding a partisan agenda.
FADEL: NPR’s Ximena Bustillo. Thank you, Ximena.
BUSTILLO: Thank you.
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