(A)Political - August 9th

Good morning everyone,

It’s another Trump heavy news week, but I promise it’s worth reading! Let’s jump in.

The appellate reversal of Judge Boasberg’s deportation ruling sets up a fast-tracked remand that will determine how soon the administration can restart removals under its revised guidelines. The Commerce Department is racing to finalize methodology for President Trump’s snap census—meant to capture the scale of undocumented migration—before state officials and likely court challenges test its timetable this fall. Armenia and Azerbaijan made peace official yesterday, after their ratification of peace with their U.S.-brokered accord in Washington.

• Appeals Court Stops Contempt Order Proceedings Over U.S. Deportation Case

• Trump Orders New Census, Cites ‘Illegal Immigrants’ As Driving Force For Recount

• Peace Deal Between Armenia-Azerbaijan Secured By Trump

Appeals Court Stops Contempt Order Proceedings Over U.S. Deportation Case

_{By: Atlas}

A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Aug. 8, 2025, set aside U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg’s finding of probable cause to pursue criminal-contempt proceedings against senior Trump administration officials. The court held that Judge Boasberg exceeded his authority when he threatened prosecutions over the administration’s March deportations of suspected Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act. Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao formed the majority; Judge Cornelia Pillard dissented. The 2-1 decision dissolves the contempt inquiry and removes the prospect of criminal charges against federal officials, although the underlying deportation litigation continues in the district court.

How the Panel Reached Its Decision

The controversy began on Mar. 15, 2025, when Judge Boasberg issued an emergency temporary restraining order (TRO) after learning that two chartered flights carrying more than 250 Venezuelan detainees had already left Texas en route to El Salvador’s high-security CECOT prison. Because the flights were airborne, the order instructed the government to “return any individuals in transit” to U.S. soil. The Supreme Court later vacated the TRO for lack of jurisdiction, but Judge Boasberg pressed forward, concluding in April that the government displayed “willful disregard” for his directive and that probable cause existed to hold unnamed officials in criminal contempt unless they reclaimed custody of the deportees or disclosed who authorized the removals.

The Justice Department challenged that ruling through a petition for a writ of mandamus as well as an interlocutory appeal. Writing separately, Judge Katsas agreed that ordinary appellate jurisdiction was lacking yet found mandamus warranted because the district court had ventured “far beyond the judicial power” by attempting to coerce executive-branch action abroad. He emphasized that the operative TRO could reasonably be read in more than one way—either as forbidding the physical exit from U.S. territory (which had already occurred) or as prohibiting the transfer of custody to a foreign sovereign (which took place later). Under long-standing contempt principles, any genuine ambiguity must be resolved in favor of the alleged violator; therefore, no contempt could lie.

Judge Rao concurred in the judgment but focused on separation-of-powers concerns. She labeled Judge Boasberg’s bid to enforce a vacated order “an egregious abuse” of the contempt power, noting that courts lose the ability to compel compliance once an injunction has been nullified. By conditioning the purge of contempt on the executive’s reopening negotiations with El Salvador and Venezuela, the district court encroached on “core foreign-affairs prerogatives,” she wrote. Such judicial leverage, she added, threatened to upset the constitutional equilibrium between the branches and therefore justified immediate mandamus relief.

Pillard’s Dissent

Judge Pillard countered that the majority overreached by invoking mandamus in the absence of a “clear and indisputable” entitlement to relief. In her view, the district court had merely sought the names of officials who might have disobeyed a valid order—a narrow step designed to preserve the judiciary’s authority to enforce its decrees. To Judge Pillard, allowing executive officials to avoid even identifying potential contemnors would set a damaging precedent: litigants disappointed by unfavorable rulings could simply ignore them and then ask an appellate court to bail them out. She also rejected the majority’s reading of the TRO as ambiguous, asserting that the transcript of the emergency hearing made clear the court’s intent to halt the flights.

Immediate Consequences and Next Steps

By vacating Judge Boasberg’s contempt order, the appeals panel ended the threat that current or former officials—potentially including Attorney General Pam Bondi, DHS Secretary Tom Homan, and senior DOJ litigators—could face criminal charges. Bondi hailed the decision on social media as “a MAJOR victory defending President Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act.” The American Civil Liberties Union, representing several deported Venezuelans, signaled it was “considering all options,” including a possible petition for rehearing en banc or a direct appeal to the Supreme Court.

The ruling does not resolve the underlying merits of the Alien Enemies Act litigation. Judge Boasberg must still decide whether any judicial remedy remains appropriate now that the Venezuelan plaintiffs have been transferred from El Salvador to Venezuela as part of a July prisoner exchange. The appeals court returned that aspect of the case to him for further proceedings, acknowledging that many original claims may be moot but leaving the door open to potential damages or other relief.

Broader Significance

Friday’s decision underscores the judiciary’s reluctance to escalate conflicts with the executive branch in matters touching foreign affairs and immigration enforcement. While courts retain contempt powers to vindicate their orders, the majority emphasized that those powers must yield when an order is ambiguous or has been vacated on jurisdictional grounds. At the same time, the sharp dissent highlights ongoing tension over how aggressively judges may police alleged executive defiance.

The panel’s reliance on mandamus—a remedy reserved for “drastic and extraordinary” circumstances—signals that higher courts may be inclined to intervene swiftly when district courts are perceived as intruding on executive discretion, particularly where national-security or diplomatic considerations are at stake. Whether the full D.C. Circuit or the Supreme Court will revisit the ruling remains to be seen, but for now the administration has avoided a showdown that could have pitted cabinet officials against criminal prosecutors in a contempt trial.

Looking ahead, legal scholars expect renewed attention to the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a statute seldom invoked until President Trump’s March proclamation targeting Tren de Aragua members. Challenges to the proclamation’s scope and implementation are advancing in several districts, and Friday’s ruling may influence how future courts craft— and enforce—temporary restraints in fast-moving deportation disputes.

Subscribe to (A)Political to read the rest.