Appeals court blocks judge’s contempt probe into Trump deportation flights

An appeals court has shut down Judge James Boasberg’s effort to investigate whether the Trump administration defied his order to halt deportation flights carrying Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, intensifying a fight over how far judges can go when the executive branch pushes the limits of a court order.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2-1 on April 14, 2026, that Boasberg could not continue the contempt inquiry tied to the March 2025 flights. Majority judges Neomi Rao and Justin Walker said the probe would intrude on executive-branch decisionmaking over national security and foreign policy. Judge J. Michelle Childs dissented.

The dispute began when the Trump administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to remove Venezuelan migrants as part of a sweeping immigration crackdown. Boasberg issued an oral order on March 15, 2025, telling officials to turn the planes around. The flights did not stop, and Boasberg later found probable cause to consider criminal contempt while seeking to determine who authorized the planes to continue toward El Salvador.

The case involved more than 200 Venezuelans, including one account that put the total at 238. They were sent to El Salvador and held at CECOT, the country’s maximum-security prison, a destination that turned the immigration fight into an international flashpoint as well as a domestic legal one. A CBS News investigation found that most of the men lacked any apparent criminal record.

The administration maintained that the removals were lawful and argued that at least some of the flights had already taken off before Boasberg issued his order. It later identified then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as the official who made the final call to transfer detainees removed before the court order.

The latest ruling is the second time the appeals court has cut back Boasberg’s contempt effort. An earlier appellate decision in August 2025 also constrained his pursuit of contempt proceedings, leaving the district judge unable to press forward with a full inquiry into who in the administration decided to continue the flights.

Beyond the immediate dispute, the case has become a test of the judiciary’s enforcement power in immigration cases when the executive branch invokes wartime authority and resists judicial intervention. The Alien Enemies Act had previously been used only in the War of 1812 and the two World Wars, making Trump’s use of it for deportations one of the most consequential expansions of the statute in modern memory. The new ruling suggests the courts remain willing to review the legality of the policy, but far less willing to let a district judge probe the internal decisionmaking behind an asserted national security operation.