White House, courts battle over deportations

by Jonathan Easley - 03/17/25 4:49 PM ET

Evan Vucci, Associated Press; and Valerie Plesch, Bloomberg via Getty Images

THE WHITE HOUSE is openly challenging court orders as it seeks to carry out its mass deportation efforts, igniting a power struggle between the executive and judicial branches of government.

The Trump administration moved swiftly over the weekend to deport hundreds of immigrant gang members after President Trump invoked emergency war powers under the rarely-used Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the administration to halt those deportations for 14 days in response to a lawsuit filed by Democracy Forward and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Boasberg verbally ordered the administration to have flights with Venezuelan migrants turn around and fly back to the U.S.

However, the flights continued to their destination in El Salvador, with the White House claiming the planes were outside “U.S. territory” by the time the judge made his written order for the planes to turn around.

“All of the planes subject to the written order of this judge departed U.S. soil, U.S. territory before the judge’s written order,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday.

“There are questions over whether a verbal order carries the same weight…as a written order, and our lawyers are determined to ask and answer those questions in court,” she added.

The ACLU disputed the White House’s argument in a court filing:

“Based on publicly available information, it appears that there were at least two flights that took off during the hearing but landed even after this Court’s written Order, meaning that Defendants could have turned the plane around without handing over individuals.”

Boasberg set a hearing for Monday evening to weigh whether the administration defied his order.

The Trump administration has appealed Boasberg’s ruling, which could be on a fast track to the Supreme Court.

Trump’s border czar Tom Homan added fuel to the fire, indicating the administration would flaunt court orders to grant due process to those the U.S. is seeking to deport.

“I don’t care what the judges think,” Homan said.

The Trump administration has been on a collision course with the federal judiciary, with Trump, Elon Musk and GOP lawmakers seething at what they view as judicial overreach.

Democrats and court watchers are warning about a creeping Constitutional crisis around what they view as the Trump administration defying the orders of an independent branch of the government.

WHITE HOUSE DEFENDS DEPORTATIONS AS GOP FURY BUILDS

The White House insists it did not defy the court orders halting deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

Leavitt also justified the moves by saying that all of those deported were members of criminal gangs, most notably Tren de Aragua, which Trump classified as a foreign terrorist organization.

“This administration acted under the confines of the law,” Leavitt said.

“These are designated foreign terrorists … these are heinous monsters, rapists, murderers, kidnappers, sexual assaulters predators who have no right to be in this country,” she added.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced hundreds of deportations — including 137 under the Alien Enemies Act — a day after the federal judge ordered a temporary stop.

“We don’t want terrorists in America,” Rubio said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I don’t know how hard that is to understand…we don’t want people in our country that are going to be committing crimes and undermining our national security or the public safety.”

Republican Rep. Brandon Gill (Texas) called for Boasberg, the federal judge, to be impeached.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) posted on X:

“Another day, another judge unilaterally deciding policy for the whole country. This time to benefit foreign gang members If the Supreme Court or Congress doesn’t fix, we’re headed towards a constitutional crisis.”

SEPARATE CASE PLAYS OUT AT BROWN UNIVERSITY

Another clash between the Trump administration and the courts is playing out at Brown University, where Rasha Alawieh, an assistant professor, was deported to Lebanon despite a judge’s order that she remain in the U.S.

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin on Friday ordered the government to provide 48 hours notice before deporting her, but she was removed from the U.S. over the weekend.

Alawieh’s attorneys say the government “willfully” disobeyed the court order.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers said they did not receive the order, and that at “no time would CBP not take a court order seriously or fail to abide by a court’s order.”

Alawieh was in the U.S. on an H-1B visa. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says she traveled to Lebanon to attend the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, the former leader of the terrorist group Hezbollah.

“Alawieh openly admitted to this to CBP officers, as well as her support of Nasrallah,” DHS said.

On visas generally: “I don’t know what we’ve gotten it in our head that a visa is some sort of birthright. It is not,” Rubio told CBS. “It is a visitor into our country, and if you violate the terms of your visitation, you are going to leave.”

💡Perspectives:

• The Wall Street Journal: Trump revolutionizes political communication.

• The Guardian: Mass deportations don’t make us safer.

• The New York Times: We were misled about the lab leak theory.

• The New Yorker: The battle for the bros.

Read more:

• Court denies Trump’s bid to reverse fired federal workers’ reinstatement.

• DC drops Proud Boys lawsuit.

• What is the Alien Enemies Act?

• Judges become targets in combative political environment.

CATCH UP QUICK

Consumers spent money at a slower-than-expected pace in February. Job seekers have hit a wall of salary deflation.
NASA says the two U.S. astronauts who have been stuck at the International Space Station for more than nine months will be returned to Earth on Tuesday.
At least 40 people died due to the storms that swept parts of the Midwest and South over the weekend.

IN CONGRESS

Schumer postpones book tour amid Democratic blowback

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) postponed a tour to promote his book on anti-semitism this week amid backlash from Democrats over his handling of the budget showdown.

Schumer had been scheduled to make stops in Baltimore, New York, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, but those events have been rescheduled over “security concerns.”

Democrats from across the ideological spectrum are seething at Schumer for voting to advance the GOP’s six-month continuing resolution (CR) to avoid a government shutdown.

Schumer argued that President Trump and Elon Musk would have used the shutdown to further dismantle government agencies.

Nearly every House Democrat voted to oppose the CR. Many in the party were spoiling for a shutdown fight and feel that Schumer sold them out.

The Senate minority leader defended his strategy in an interview with The New York Times, saying “we have a real direction now.”

“I feel good about it,” he added.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) dodged questions last week about whether Schumer should continue to lead his caucus, though he tempered those remarks on MSNBC on Monday.

“Chuck and I agree on the overwhelming majority of issues moving forward,” Jeffries said.

MEANWHILE…

A new CNN-SSRS survey found the Democratic Party’s favorability rating falling to 29 percent, a record low.

Most Democrats in the poll said they want the party to focus mainly on stopping the GOP agenda.

“The Democratic Party needs a major transformation,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) posted on X. “It can no longer be a top-down, billionaire-funded, consultant-driven party. It must be a multi-generational, multi-racial working class party. In a time of growing oligarchy & authoritarianism, that’s the only path to victory.”

💡Perspectives:

• Silver Bulletin: Democrats should have shut it down.

• The Liberal Patriot: The blue state exodus should scare Democrats.

• Gideon’s: The 2026 Senate map is better for Dems than you think.

• The American Prospect: The Democratic Party is collapsing.

• The Guardian: Democrats train fire on Musk.

Read more:

• Schumer at center of civil war after funding fiasco.

• Democrats stumble in race for Senate.

• GOP lawmakers tackle challenge of turning Trump actions into laws.

• House Republicans targeting 26 Democrats on initial midterm list.

IN OTHER NEWS

Trump to speak with Putin about ending war in Ukraine

President Trump says he’ll speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday about ending the war with Ukraine.

The fighting continues, with Russia and Ukraine exchanging attacks over the weekend after Putin met with U.S. officials about a potential ceasefire deal that Ukraine has already accepted.

The president said part of the conversation with Putin would center around “dividing up certain assets” between Russia and Ukraine.

MEANWHILE…

The U.S. is ramping up its military strikes in the Middle East:

• Trump said the U.S. killed ISIS’s second-in-command in Iraq over the weekend.

• The U.S. launched “decisive and powerful” strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen. National security adviser Mike Waltz said the strikes killed several Houthi leaders. The Houthis are vowing to retaliate, saying they will not stop until a “blockade on Gaza” is lifted.

• Trump escalated his rhetoric against Iran, saying he’d hold them responsible for “every shot fired” by the Houthis. Waltz said the U.S. could hit additional Iranian targets in Yemen next.

ELSEWHERE…

• Trump said he believes former President Biden’s last-minute pardons are “void” because he signed them with an autopen.

Over the weekend, Trump rolled back more than a dozen of Biden’s executive actions pertaining to gender, labor and regulations.

• Trump attended a board meeting at the Kennedy Center on Monday after overhauling the institution and installing himself as the chairman.

💡Perspectives:

• The Hill: Ten ways DOGE can remake our outdated Defense Department.

• The Hill: Putin’s real goal is to destroy NATO.

• The Free Press: A user’s guide to wrecking the financial system.

• Foreign Affairs: The key to Ukraine’s survival.

Read more:

• Trump pulls security clearance of Paul Weiss law firm.

• Trump uses research funding as a wedge.