Federal Judge Gives Trump One Week to Provide Habeas Corpus Relief to Venezuelans in CECOT

The Trump administration has a week to resolve what a federal judge in Washington, D.C. said has become a Kafkaesque legal battle for more than 130 Venezuelan people who were summarily expelled from the United States, after the judge ruled late Wednesday that the mass removal of the men was unlawful.

Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. ordered the Trump administration to provide the migrants with habeas corpus relief and gave officials a week to propose, in writing, how they will ensure the imprisoned men will be permitted to fight their expulsion and detention in court.

The plaintiffs "never had any opportunity to challenge the government's say-so," said Boasberg, noting that since the Venezuelan men were sent to El Salvador—with President Donald Trump and other officials claiming they were members of the gang Tren de Aragua— "significant evidence has come to light indicating that many of those currently entombed in [prison] have no connection to the gang and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous accusations."

Boasberg compared the ordeal of the Venezuelan migrants to Franz Kafka's The Trial, in which the protagonist is arrested for an unspecified crime.

"In our nation—unlike the one into which K. awakes—the government's mere promise that there has been no mistake does not suffice," wrote Boasberg.

A "lengthy ruling" that begins "by quoting from Franz Kafka's The Trial, a novel associated with an absurd legal ordeal... could be a bad sign for the government," wrote legal analyst Jordan Rubin at NBC News.

The ruling is the latest demand from Boasberg that the Trump administration provide due process to people it sent to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

He issued a temporary restraining order in March after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act—a law previously only used during wartime to detain or deport citizens of countries the U.S. was fighting—and demanded that the administration turn back planes carrying 137 Venezuelans to El Salvador. He later threatened to hold administration officials in contempt for ignoring the order.

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is helping to represent plaintiffs in the case, J.G.G. v. Trump, said that "today's ruling affirms what every American knows: In the United States, people are entitled to due process and no one should be removed from the country without it."

"What has long separated the United States from autocratic regimes is the recognition of this process. We will continue to oppose this administration’s attempts to re-write the protections afforded under our Constitution," said Perryman.

Following the ruling, U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said, "the administration must act."

Scott Michelman, legal director at the ACLU of the District of Columbia, said the ruling "vindicates one of the most fundamental promises of our nation's Constitution: that a person cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. At stake in this case is no less than whether a U.S. president can, at will, disappear people he views as enemies. No practice could be more odious to our Constitution."

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the administration could resume removals under the Alien Enemies Act but said officials must provide people with sufficient notice before they were expelled.

The ruling prevented Boasberg from granting nationwide relief to migrants who are detained in state and federal detention centers, but the ACLU asked the judge to consider the case of the men who had already been sent to CECOT.