Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Trump Defies Deportation Court Order
The Trump administration has deported several dozen undocumented non-Americans despite a court order forbidding it. The White House claims that the order was issued too late, and it emphasized that it did not violate the order. That is a cowardly way to address the issue, and so, it is in character. Judge James E. Boasberg needs to call in the Justice Department lawyers, sanction them, get the names of the individual bureaucrats involved and punish them with jail time for contempt of court. If he does nothing, then the courts are no longer worth their salt. One expects very little at this point from the institutions of the dying American republic.
The details of the case are not particularly important nor interesting in themselves. The deportees were alleged to be members of criminal gangs and shipped out without due process. It appears to be setting a precedent for all others from Venezuela in particular and Latin America in general. It is the actions of the administration that are noteworthy. Mr. Trump invoked the moribund Alien Enemies Act.
The Associated Press noted, "On Saturday night, District Judge James E. Boasberg ordered the administration not to deport anyone in its custody over the newly-invoked Alien Enemies Act, which has only been used three times before in U.S. history, all during congressionally-declared wars. Trump issued a proclamation that the 1798 law was newly in effect due to what he claimed was an invasion by the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua."
The AP also stated that when His Honor found out that two planes were in the air on their way to El Salvador, which had agreed to take them, he told the Justice Department lawyers, "You shall inform your clients of this immediately, and that any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States." Instead, a third plane took off after the order was issued. There is the contempt of court, right there with a smoking gun.
His Honor has set a 4 pm hearing today, and he has warned the government lawyers to be ready to answer a load of questions about this incident. Some kind of punishment must be ordered.
The trouble here goes back to the days of Andrew Jackson who was told by the Supreme Court he could not force the Cherokee people off their land. He did it anyway and is alleged to have said, "The court has made its decision, let it enforce it."
That goes to the very heart of the American system, or any government for that matter. Laws get passed, legal disputes are settled in court, but without proper and systemic enforcement, it is nonsense. Indeed, one of the most liberal documents ever written was the Soviet Constitution drafted by Joe Stalin in the 1930s. It is easy for a totalitarian state to have a liberal constitution so long as it is not enforced.
So, the American judicial system, which has been the bulwark in which many anti-Trumpists have placed their faith, is now in the spotlight. Failure to order any punishment for this breach of the law will render future lawsuits pointless. Failure to enforce any ordered punishment will have the same effect. For those who believe the courts would hold, this is show time.
From the vantage point of this journal, the view is less promising. The lawyers and judges were educated at law school to believe that enforcement was a given. It is not. One doubts they have the faintest idea what to do when court orders go in the wastebasket.
Other pressure can be brought to bear, but those are not part of the legal system. Strikes, boycotts, demonstrations and so on are worrisome because it is difficult to see how they play out before it is too late. They are, however, potentially useful. It is also true that they can get out of hand.
This journal offers this advice – do not forget to duck.
© Copyright 2025 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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