Appeals Court Nukes Boasberg’s Contempt Order In Trump Admin Deportations
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit indicated that Boasberg went too far
(ZH) – Activist judge James Boasberg has just been slapped down, after an appeals court removed an order which could have resulted in the Trump administration being found in contempt as part of a tense confrontation with the US District Judge.
Earlier this year, Boasberg said he found probable cause to hold the administration in contempt because it purportedly violated his orders to halt deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.
However in a 2–1 decision on Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit indicated that Boasberg went too far. Judge Gregory Katsas said that one of Boasberg’s orders could have been read in different ways.
Pundits have used this case to accuse the administration of not following the law. Now will they recant? Just this week the New York Times published multiple articles using the contempt proceeding as evidence that President Trump isn’t following court orders. Correction time?
— Eric W. (@EWess92) August 8, 2025
“The district court here was placed in an enormously difficult position,” wrote Judge Gregory Katsas. “Faced with an emergency situation, it had to digest and rule upon novel and complex issues within a matter of hours. In that context, the court quite understandably issued a written order that contained some ambiguity.”
Katsas noted that the appellate court ruling doesn’t center around the lawfulness of Trump’s Alien Enemies Act removals in March, when the administration invoked the 1798 immigration law to send over 250 Venezuelan nationals to CEDOT, El Salvador’s maximum-security prison.
“Nor may we decide whether the government’s aggressive implementation of the presidential proclamation warrants praise or criticism as a policy matter,” he added. “Perhaps it should warrant more careful judicial scrutiny in the future. Perhaps it already has.”
“Regardless, the government’s initial implementation of the proclamation clearly and indisputably was not criminal.”
As the Epoch Times notes further, Judge Neomi Rao described Boasberg’s decision as an “egregious” abuse of the court’s contempt power and said Boasberg had lost the authority to try and “coerce compliance” with his original order. That’s because his initial halts on the deportations had been vacated by the Supreme Court in another decision from April.
One of the judges, Judge Cornelia Pillard, defended Boasberg and said the Trump administration appeared to have disobeyed his directions.
“Our system of courts cannot long endure if disappointed litigants defy court orders with impunity rather than legally challenge them,” Pillard said. “This is why willful disobedience of a court order is punishable as criminal contempt.”
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