District Judge Micromanages Immigration Policy
Joe Biden created the border crisis. Donald Trump is fixing it. But a Barack Obama-appointed judge just threw a wrench in the gears.
The Constitution establishes a system of checks and balances to complement the separation of powers. Congress makes the laws, the president enforces them, and the judiciary reviews them. Imagine what America would be like if that system no longer functioned.
Oh, wait.
For decades, Congress has been derelict, passing laws it has no business passing or refusing to address roiling issues and leaving the dirty work to the president or judiciary. Presidents, meanwhile, have increasingly taken to governing by executive order, while district judges are all too happy to issue sweeping nationwide injunctions beyond the scope of their authority.
This dysfunction is exemplified in the border crisis. In some respects, we didn’t need new laws to enforce the ones on the books. We just needed a new president. In other respects, it would simplify the legal process for dealing with the crisis if Congress would create particular legislation aimed at fixing it. Absent that, we have a president looking for laws to justify necessary actions and judges slapping that down for whatever reason can be contrived.
On Saturday, as promised, President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to speed the deportation of members of the Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua. The gang, he said, is “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.” If its members are not citizens or legal residents, he proclaimed, they are “liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies” without access to immigration court hearings.
His administration had previously designated that gang a foreign terrorist organization, and Team Trump then reasoned that a law already on the books provided the necessary authority for immediate removal. It’s a bit of a stretch because the law was aimed at national security during a time of war, and we’re not technically at war right now.
However, a foreign terrorist organization has no right to operate in America while the administration files the proper paperwork to satisfy a DC judge. That’s true even if Tren de Aragua only took over that one apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado. (Hat tip to JD Vance for setting the record straight there, famously asking, “Martha, do you hear yourself?”)
Nevertheless, Judge James Boasberg, appointed by Barack “Pen and Phone” Obama, felt so strongly that Trump exceeded his authority that he not only put a 14-day hold on Trump’s deportation order but demanded that planes literally in the air turn around and bring terrorist criminals back to the United States: “Any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States however that is accomplished. Make sure it’s complied with immediately.”
Well then.
I’m sure it’s totally unrelated, but Matt Margolis notes, “Judge Boasberg is the same activist judge who let FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith off with a slap on the wrist for his role in the Russia hoax.”
Texas Republican Representative Brandon Gill is working on articles of impeachment against Boasberg, and Attorney General Pam Bondi has filed an emergency motion to reverse his ruling.
I’m old enough to remember when Joe Biden bragged that the Supreme Court “didn’t stop me” from transferring student loans to taxpayers after the justices correctly ruled he had no such authority. Yet when Trump creatively applies the law to achieve an actual national security objective, as opposed to a craven polling maneuver to redistribute income, a district judge attempts to micromanage the executive branch’s flight schedule.
In any case, Boasberg was too late. The administration says it has already deported more than 250 gang members (including 23 members of MS-13), even though The Washington Post indignantly reports that multiple flights landed after the judge issued his order.
“Oopsie… Too late,” quipped El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on X after his nation willingly received the flights and will jail the terrorists.
Oopsie…
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 16, 2025
Too late 😂 pic.twitter.com/nDHL6deLJq
CNN frets, “If the administration defied the judge, it would potentially create the most serious legal quagmire of the administration so far and would fuel fears that an authoritarian presidency could openly defy the rule of law.” CNN cheered when Obama and Biden made mincemeat of the Rule of Law.
“The Administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order,” argued White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. “The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory.” She continued, “Moreover, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear — federal courts generally have no jurisdiction over the President’s conduct of foreign affairs, his authorities under the Alien Enemies Act, and his core Article II powers to remove foreign alien terrorists from U.S. soil and repel a declared invasion.”
The legal battle will continue, but until then, there are 250 fewer terrorist criminals in our country. The Left argues we should bring them back, but oddly enough, that doesn’t strike me as the wisest thing to do.
