Republicans are calling for U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg’s impeachment after he tried to block the deportation of violent Tren de Aragua (TdA) and MS-13 gang members over the weekend. The United States designated Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa Cartel and other drug cartels as global terrorist organizations on February 19.
On Saturday, the Trump administration deported a total 261 illegal aliens to El Salvador, most of whom were removed through either the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 or Title 8.
Of those deported, 101 were TdA Venezuelans, 21 were Salvadoran MS-13 gang members, and two were MS-13 ringleaders and “special cases” for El Salvador, according to Fox News. Their offenses reportedly include “kidnapping, sexual abuse of a child, aggravated assault, prostitution, robbery and aggravated assault of a police officer.”
Judge Boasberg, an Obama appointee and key Russia hoax player, ordered an immediate stop to the deportations so he could have more time to consider whether Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act was legal. Incredibly, the judge ordered planes that were already in the air to turn back to the United States.
Sunday morning, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele posted on X, “Oopsie … Too late,” with a laughing emoji.
In a separate post, Bukele explained that the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 members “were immediately transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a period of one year,” and that the U.S. would “pay a very low fee” for their incarceration. Bukele went on to explain that the prisoners will eventually be put to work in various workshops and labor projects which “will help make our prison system self-sustainable.”
A video posted on social media Sunday showed heavily-armed Salvadorean guards surrounding the gang members, forcing their heads down and transporting them into facilities one by one.
President Donald Trump thanked Bukele on Truth Social Sunday, referring to the prisoners as “the monsters sent into our Country by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats.”
“Thank you to El Salvador and, in particular, President Bukele, for your understanding of this horrible situation, which was allowed to happen to the United States because of incompetent Democrat leadership,” Trump wrote. “We will not forget!”
Axios reported on Sunday that “the White House says it ignored a court order to turn around two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members because the flights were over international waters and therefore the ruling didn’t apply.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded in a statement Sunday that the Trump administration “did not ‘refuse to comply’ with Boasberg’s court order.”
The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory. The written order and the Administration’s actions do not conflict. 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. A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrying foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil.
GOP Congressman Brandon Gill has announced plans Sunday to file articles of impeachment against Judge Boasberg, a move supported by DOGE chief Elon Musk and many other Republicans.
Gill posted on X that the “activist judge” was fighting to keep dangerous criminals in the country.
“I’ll be filing Articles of Impeachment against activist judge James Boasberg this week,” he wrote Saturday night.
Reps. Eli Crane (R-Ariz), Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) have also voiced their support for legislation in the house to impeach Judge Boasberg.
Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, reacted furiously to Boasberg’s order Sunday, and vowed that his committee would be “taking action.”
“Another day, another judge unilaterally deciding policy for the whole country,” Grassley posted on X. “This time to benefit foreign gang members If the Supreme Court or Congress doesn’t fix, we’re headed towards a constitutional crisis. Senate Judiciary Cmte taking action.”
Trump ally Mike Davis of the Article III Project called on Congress to impeach Boasberg and defund his court.
The President of the United States correctly designated Tren de Aragua (TdA), a vicious Venezuelan gang, as a foreign-terrorist organization. The President correctly put these terrorists on planes to get them the hell out of our country. Yet Obama-appointed DC District Judge James Boasberg thinks he has the power to order the President to turn around the planes in mid-air and bring these terrorists back into America. This is the most dangerous constitutional crisis imaginable. The President has a constitutional duty, as the chief executive officer and commander-in-chief, to ignore Judge Boasberg’s lawless and dangerous order. The House must impeach Judge Boasberg for abuse of power. The Senate must convict Judge Boasberg. And the Congress must defund his court.
“I don’t say this lightly. But the time has come,” Davis wrote on X.
During an appearance on Steve Bannon’s War room podcast, Davis said impeachment is warranted because what Boasberg did was “illegal, reckless and dangerous,” and an attempt to “sabotage the president of the United States during a national security operation.”
The lawyer found it astonishing that the judge thought he had the power to issue a temporary restraining order forcing the president “to turn around planes full of international terrorists.”
“These are foreign terrorists,” he stressed. “And Jeb Boasberg, this Democrat Obama clown judge in D.C. thinks he’s the Commander-in-Chief?”