Exclusive: How the White House ignored a judge's order to turn back deportation flights

Stephen Miller in the Oval Office. Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty

Mark Caputo for Axios

The Trump administration says it ignored a Saturday court order to turn around two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members because the flights were over international waters and therefore the ruling didn't apply, two senior officials tell Axios.

Why it matters: The administration's decision to defy a federal judge's order is exceedingly rare and highly controversial.

• "Court order defied. First of many as I've been warning and start of true constitutional crisis," national security attorney Mark S. Zaid, a Trump critic, wrote on X, adding that Trump could ultimately get impeached.
• The White House welcomes that fight. "This is headed to the Supreme Court. And we're going to win," a senior White House official told Axios.
• A second administration official said Trump was not defying the judge whose ruling came too late for the planes to change course: "Very important that people understand we are not actively defying court orders."

State of play: Trump's advisers contend U.S. District Judge James Boasberg overstepped his authority by issuing an order that blocked the president from deporting about 250 alleged Tren de Aragua gang members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1789.

• The war-time law gives the executive extreme immense power to deport noncitizens without a judicial hearing. But it has been little-used, particularly in peacetime.
• "It's the showdown that was always going to happen between the two branches of government," a senior White House official said. "And it seemed that this was pretty clean. You have Venezuelan gang members ... These are bad guys, as the president would say."

How it happened: White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller "orchestrated" the process in the West Wing in tandem with Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem. Few outside their teams knew what was happening.

• They didn't actually set out to defy a court order. "We wanted them on the ground first, before a judge could get the case, but this is how it worked out," said the official.

The timeline: The president signed the executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act on Friday night, but intentionally did not advertise it. On Saturday morning, word of the order leaked, officials said, prompting a mad scramble to get planes in the air.

• At 2:31 p.m. Saturday, an immigration activist who tracks deportation flights, posted on X that "TWO HIGHLY UNUSUAL ICE flights" were departing from Texas to El Salvador, which had agreed to accept Venezuelan gang members deported from the U.S.
• Hours later, during a court hearing filed by the ACLU., Boasberg ordered a halt to the deportations and said any flights should be turned around mid-air.
• "This is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately," he told the Justice Department, according to the Washington Post.
• At that point, about 6:51 p.m., both flights were off the Yucatan Peninsula, according to flight paths posted on X.

Inside the White House, officials discussed whether to order the planes to turn around. On advice from a team of administration lawyers, the administration pressed ahead.

• "There was a discussion about how far the judge's ruling can go under the circumstances and over international waters and, on advice of counsel, we proceeded with deporting these thugs," the senior official said.
• "They were already outside of US airspace. We believe the order is not applicable," a second senior administration official told Axios.

Yes, but: The Trump administration was already spoiling for a fight over the Alien Enemies Act — one of several fronts on which they believe legal challenges to the president's authority will only end up strengthening it when the Supreme Court rules in his favor.

Between the lines: Officially, the Trump White House is not denying it ignored the judge's order, and instead wants to shift the argument to whether it was right to expel alleged members of Tren de Aragua.

• "If the Democrats want to argue in favor of turning a plane full of rapists, murderers, and gangsters back to the United States, that's a fight we are more than happy to take," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios when asked about the case.
• It's unclear how many of the roughly 250 Venezuelans were deported under the Alien Enemies Act and how many were kicked out of the U.S. due to other immigration laws.
• It's also not clear whether all of them were actually gang members.

What they are saying: On Sunday morning, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele posted a video on X hailing the arrival of the Venezuelans in his country. Bukele also mockingly featured an image of a New York Post story about the judge's order halting the flights.

• "Oopsie ... too late," Bukele wrote on X with a crying-laughing emoji
• U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio retweeted the post.

Update: After publication, Leavitt issued a statement: "The Administration did not 'refuse to comply' with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory."

• "The written order and the Administration's actions do not conflict. Moreover, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear — federal courts generally have no jurisdiction over the President's conduct of foreign affairs, his authorities under the Alien Enemies Act, and his core Article II powers to remove foreign alien terrorists from U.S. soil and repel a declared invasion," she wrote.
• "A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil."

Editor's note: This story was updated with the White House official's claim that the administration had ignored the ruling but not defied it, because it came too late, and with Leavitt's updated statement.