By Hailey Gomez, Daily Caller News Foundation | March 17, 2025
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi called out U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg Monday on Fox News for “attempting to meddle” in President Donald Trump’s deportations of criminal migrants.
Boasberg temporarily blocked deportations on Saturday evening, the same day Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 against Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA), sending over 200 gang members to El Salvador. On “Jesse Watters Primetime,” guest host Judge Jeanine Pirro asked Bondi how the judge could override Trump’s power to engage in “national security and foreign policy” and whether the administration will respect the order going forward.
“Well, that’s it. He’s attempting to meddle in national security and foreign affairs, and he can’t do it,” Bondi said. “What he’s done is an intrusion on the president’s authority. You know, this one federal judge, again, thinks he can control foreign policy for the entire country, and he cannot. Right now we’re evaluating our options.”
In a proclamation released Saturday, Trump wrote that TdA members, under the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, will be arrested immediately by officials and removed from the U.S. as they are deemed “Alien Enemies.” Exactly 261 migrants were then deported to El Salvador, with 137 removed under the Alien Enemies Act for alleged gang ties, according to CBS News.
Boasberg and the Department of Justice had gone back and forth in court on Saturday, with the D.C. judge holding an emergency hearing that evening. Boasberg expanded his order to state that “all noncitizens in U.S. custody” were not to be deported.
Boasberg, however, did not write in his order that any deportation flights already in the air should be returned to the U.S., according to CBS News.
Pirro went on to ask Bondi if the administration will continue to deport criminal migrants, to which Bondi said yes.
“Absolutely,” Bondi said. “These are foreign terrorists that the president has identified and designated them as such, and we will continue to follow the Alien Enemies Act.”
El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said Sunday morning that his country had received 238 members of TdA, who were “immediately transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a period of one year (renewable).”
Hailey Gomez is a general assignment reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation
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