Despite White House claims of compliance, an ABC News review of flight data and court documents suggests the Trump administration ignored a federal judge’s order temporarily blocking the president from using a rarely invoked wartime law to deport noncitizens.
The legal battle erupted after President Donald Trump invoked a centuries-old law granting him sweeping authority to deport noncitizens with little to no due process. The move prompted a lawsuit from a group of Venezuelan nationals, whom the administration alleged were members of the gang Tren de Aragua, to prevent their immediate deportation.
On Saturday evening, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued an order halting the deportations and directing two flights carrying noncitizens to return to the United States. His decision came more than 45 minutes before the first of the two flights landed in Honduras.
However, flight data revealed that both planes—departing from Valley International Airport in Texas—took off during a break in an emergency court hearing, before the judge had issued his final ruling.
In a Sunday court filing, the Trump administration acknowledged that some of the deportees had already been removed but argued that the flights left before the court’s written order was issued at 7:26 p.m.
However, Judge Boasberg had verbally ordered compliance at 6:46 p.m., well before the flights landed in Honduras at 7:37 p.m. and 8:10 p.m., before continuing on to El Salvador later that night.
In response to ABC News, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted the administration had not defied the court, stating that “the written order and the Administration’s actions do not conflict.”
She dismissed concerns over the deportations, arguing, “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.”
The case has intensified an already heated legal and political battle over Trump’s use of executive power to bypass standard immigration procedures, setting the stage for further court challenges in the coming days.
