CNN
 — 

The White House is denying that it violated a judge’s order Saturday to halt the deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador, which, if it did occur, would take legal showdowns over the administration’s claims of vast presidential power closer to the edge of a constitutional crisis.

The drama surrounds Venezuelan migrants expelled with the rare use of an 18th-century law — the Alien Enemies Act — another controversial decision and one that may represent overreach by President Donald Trump.

US District Judge James Boasberg temporarily blocked the deportations to consider the implications of using the act — and said in court that any planes already in the air carrying migrants should return to the US. But the administration announced on Sunday that 250 deportees that it said were affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang were in El Salvadorian custody.

A carefully worded statement by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Sunday evening only deepened intrigue over whether officials defied the judge.

“The Administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist (Tren de Aragua) aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory,” Leavitt said.

“A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil,” she added.

A distinction Leavitt made about the judge’s “written” order, and the fact she noted the migrants had left US soil but did not say when in the timeline they arrived in El Salvador, seem significant. Her use of the phrase “aircraft carrier” is confusing, however. And White Houses don’t have the power to decree whether court orders are lawful.

The exact timing of Boasberg’s orders and how they correspond to the deportation operation is not yet clear. But 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.

Trump is acting now and not waiting for the consequences

The drama points to a trend.

Trump is wielding huge power now. This leaves those who might constrain him — including the courts and his political opponents — to ask questions later, after his actions have wrought almost irrevocable change.

The invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to speed up deportations is a significant step, as it is meant to be limited to use in wartime.

Meanwhile, a crackdown on student protests highlighted by the arrest of a Palestinian green card holder is being justified on the grounds that his anti-Israel views hurt US foreign policy interests — but critics see an attempt to crush First Amendment rights and dissent in education by a White House untamed by the Constitution.

Trump’s sudden shutdown of the taxpayer-funded international radio and television service Voice of America over the weekend, meanwhile, renewed debate over whether he has the power to unilaterally ignore spending authorized in laws passed by Congress and followed his chilling claims on Friday that media outlets that do not promote his MAGA views are “corrupt and illegal.”

Millions of voters sent Trump to Washington to destroy institutions that they believe do not reflect their culture, values, and material interests. And polls show that among his supporters, Trump’s actions are popular.

His mantra is to act fast, since limits on presidential power are mostly retrospective — meaning that Trump can get the desired results before he can be stopped. A government department, for example, can be dismantled beyond repair by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency even if a judge subsequently orders fired workers, programs and funding to be restored.

The 1798 Alien Enemies Act has resulted in abuses that stained American history. It tarnished the reputation of the second president — John Adams — and was used to justify the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

The text of the law says that it can be invoked whenever a war is declared between the United States and “any foreign nation or government” or when “an Invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government” and the president makes a proclamation to that effect.

But the United States is not at war with Venezuela, and while Trump has frequently claimed the country is subject to an “invasion” by undocumented migrants, criminals and gang members, Congress — not the president — has the constitutional responsibility to declare war. So, the question immediately became whether Trump went beyond the powers of the law and his office with the deportations.

Boasberg’s temporary restraining order was meant to create time to allow these critical legal arguments to play out.

South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” Sunday that he didn’t know whether the administration had ignored the judge’s order to block the deportations. But he added: “We expect the executive branch to follow the law. We have said in the past that we will follow the law … we are a constitutional republic, and we will follow those laws.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Sunday on X that over 250 “alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua” had been sent to El Salvador to be held “in their very good jails at a fair price.” The US is paying $6 million for their accommodation.

The timing of the various court orders and the deportations is now at issue.

Boasberg had initially blocked the administration from deporting five individuals who lodged a legal challenge. After a later hearing, he broadened his action to cover all noncitizens in US custody subject to Trump’s proclamation. Attorney General Pam Bondi and other top DOJ officials argued in a Sunday filing that “some gang members” were deported between Boasberg’s two orders on Saturday. They said the five initial plaintiffs were not removed. The administration has already appealed the judge’s moves.

The case is significant beyond the judge’s instructions.

International law generally prohibits the deporting of individuals to places where they could face persecution. The brutal, crowded conditions faced by inmates in El Salvador could meet that threshold. And the government of President Nayib Bukele — whom Trump officials frequently praise — stands accused of constitutional and human rights abuses that infringe most understandings of American foreign policy values in recent decades.

Then there are the concerns about why Trump is using the notorious Alien Enemies act at all, given that other mechanisms exist to expel gang members. The administration’s lack of transparency about the identities of those it deported could also raise the possibility that undocumented migrants who are not gang members are being deprived of their legal rights, swept up in the purge and sent to a grim fate in El Salvador’s custody.

“Giving them this wide latitude to just … claim that anybody is anything is wrong,” Texas Democratic Rep Jasmine Crockett told Tapper. “We do have courts, we do have processes, we do have laws, and we should just go ahead and use those.”

But the political benefits for Trump of acting with strongman zeal are obvious and allow him to imply that anyone who questions his actions are siding with vicious criminals who no one wants in the United States.

“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,” the president wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.

The administration is also facing questions over the handling of the detention of former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian refugee whose green card was revoked over his involvement in the last year’s protests over the Israel-Hamas war.

Was Khalil arrested for activities that could legally be categorized as material support for a terrorist organization, or is he being held in infringement of his First Amendment rights as a legal permanent resident of the United States? His supporters say he was targeted purely for speaking up against Israel’s onslaught against Gaza after the October 7 attacks in 2023.

But Rubio argued on CBS “Face the Nation” on Sunday that it was “very simple” to see that Khalil had lied when applying for a green card about his future political activities that included taking part in pro-Hamas events. “We never should have allowed him in, in the first place. If he had told us, ‘I’m going over there and I’m going over there to become the spokesperson and one of the leaders of a movement that’s going to turn one of your allegedly elite colleges upside down’ — people can’t even go to school, library buildings being vandalized — we never would have let him in,” Rubio said. The secretary of state repeated his contention that Khalil’s activity ran “counter to the foreign policy interest of the United States of America.”

US law states that anyone who “endorses or espouses terrorist activities or persuades others to do so” is ineligible for a visa to enter the country. But the coming case is likely to partly focus on whether those prohibitions apply to a legal permanent resident already in the United States.