A federal judge said Wednesday he plans to move ahead quickly on a contempt investigation of the Trump administration for failing to turn around planes carrying Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador in March.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington said a ruling Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit gave him the authority to proceed with the inquiry, which will determine whether there is sufficient evidence to refer the matter for prosecution. He asked attorneys by Monday to identify witnesses and offer plans for how to conduct the probe and said he'd like to start any hearings on December 1.
The judge has previously warned he could seek to have officials in the administration prosecuted.
On March 15, Boasberg ordered the aircraft carrying accused gang members to return to the U.S., but they landed instead in El Salvador, where the migrants were held at a notorious prison.
“I am authorized to proceed just as I intended to do in April seven months ago,” the judge said during a hearing Wednesday. He added later, “I certainly intend to find out what happened on that day.”
Boasberg said having witnesses testify under oath appeared to be the best way to conduct the contempt probe, but he also suggested the government could provide written declarations to explain who gave orders to “defy” his ruling. He suggested one witness: a former U.S. Justice Department attorney who filed a whistleblower complaint that claims a top official in the department suggested the Trump administration might have to ignore court orders as it prepared to deport Venezuelan migrants it accused of being gang members.
The Trump administration has denied any violation, saying the judge’s directive to return the planes was made verbally in court but not included in his written order. Justice Department attorney Tiberius Davis told Boasberg the government objected to further contempt proceedings.
Boasberg previously found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt of court. The ruling marked a dramatic battle between the judicial and executive branches of government, but a divided three-judge appeals court panel later sided with the administration and threw out the finding. The two judges in the majority were appointed by President Donald Trump.
On Friday, a larger panel of judges on the D.C. Circuit said the earlier ruling by their colleagues did not bar Boasberg from moving ahead with his contempt probe. Boasberg’s contempt finding was a “measured and essential response,” Judges Cornelia Pillard, Robert Wilkins and Bradley Garcia wrote.
“Obedience to court orders is vital to the ability of the judiciary to fulfill its constitutionally appointed role,” they wrote. “Judicial orders are not suggestions; they are binding commands that the Executive Branch, no less than any other party, must obey.”
The Trump administration invoked an 18th century wartime law to send the migrants, whom it accused of membership in a Venezuelan gang, to a mega-prison in El Salvador known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. It argued that American courts could not order them freed.
In June, Boasberg ruled the Trump administration must give some of the migrants a chance to challenge their deportations, saying they hadn’t been able to formally contest the removals or allegations that they were members of Tren de Aragua.
The judge wrote that “significant evidence” had surfaced indicating that many of the migrants were not connected to the gang “and thus were languishing in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations.”
More than 200 migrants were later released back to Venezuela in a prisoner swap with the U.S.
Their attorneys want Boasberg to issue another order requiring the administration to explain how it will give at least 137 of the men a chance to challenge their gang designation under the Alien Enemies Act.
The men are in danger in Venezuela and fear talking to attorneys, who have been able to contact about 30 of them, but they “overwhelmingly” want to pursue their cases, Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said Wednesday.
Davis said it may be hard to take the men into custody again given tensions between the U.S. and the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Boasberg did not immediately rule on the matter.
FILE - Migrants deported months before by the United States to El Salvador under the Trump administration's immigration crackdown arrive at Simon Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, July 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)
FILE - As prisoners stand looking out from a cell, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments at 10 a.m. ET over the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to someone in the country illegally or temporarily.
The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, is part of his Republican administration’s broad immigration crackdown.
Trump plans to be in attendance. He will be the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the nation’s highest court.
Every lower court to have considered the issue has found the order illegal and prevented it from taking effect. A definitive ruling by the nation’s highest court is expected by early summer.
Here’s the latest:
Sauer, Trump’s top Supreme Court lawyer, is at the lectern, defending the president’s birthright citizenship order. Trump is in the courtroom.
On American Samoa, an island cluster in the South Pacific roughly halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand, native-born children are considered “U.S. nationals” — a distinction that gives them certain rights and obligations while denying them others.
American Samoans are entitled to U.S. passports and can serve in the military. Men must register for the Selective Service. They can vote in local elections in American Samoa but cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections.
Those who wish to become citizens can do so, but the process costs hundreds of dollars and can be cumbersome. In 2022, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal seeking to extend birthright citizenship to American Samoa.
An Alaska appeals court is weighing whether to dismiss criminal charges against an Alaska resident born in American Samoa after she was elected to a local school board.
Crowds watched from the sidewalks as Trump’s motorcade drove along Constitution and Independence Avenues, passing the Washington Monument and the National Mall on the way to the court building.
Justice Felix Frankfurter, a native of Austria, was the last of six justices who were born abroad. The current court is American from birth.
Still, the citizenship issue hits close to home for some justices.
Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson are descended from enslaved people who eventually had their citizenship established by the 14th Amendment.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s parents were born in Puerto Rico, where residents became citizens under a 1917 law enacted by Congress. The justice most closely tied to an immigrant is Alito, whose father was born in Italy.
Way back in 1841, former President John Quincy Adams represented a shipload of African men and women who had been sold into slavery in the famous Amistad case.
Former President William Howard Taft became chief justice nearly eight years after leaving the White House in 1913. Charles Evans Hughes left the Supreme Court for a presidential run in 1912, which he nearly won, then returned to the court in 1930 as chief justice.
In 1966, Richard Nixon argued his only Supreme Court case, which he lost.
Twenty-four Democratic state attorneys general put out a statement Wednesday morning saying they’re “proud to lead the fight against this unlawful order.”
While Democratic attorneys general have sued the Trump administration scores of times, the plaintiffs in this case are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups.
The Democratic attorneys filed court papers supporting their position. Twenty-five of their Republican counterparts filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing the Trump administration.
The only state sitting this one out is New Hampshire.
More than 250,000 babies born in the U.S. each year would not be citizens, according to research from the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.
The order would only apply going forward, the administration has said. But opponents have said a court ruling in Trump’s favor could pave the way for a later effort to take away citizenship from people who were born to parents who were not themselves U.S. citizens.
The president and first lady Melania Trump showed up for the court ritual marking the arrival of a new justice following the confirmations of Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and Justice Brett Kavanaugh a year later.
The ceremony for Trump’s third appointee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, was delayed a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic and Trump, who was no longer in office, did not attend.
Traditionally the president has avoided attending arguments to maintain distance between the government branches — since the executive officer’s presence is seen by many as a way to pressure the independent court to rule in their favor.
Given the unusual nature of it all — Trump’s presence in the courtroom spotlights how high the stakes are for him, as the court’s decision will have massive consequences on his longstanding promise to crack down on immigration.
Last year, Trump said that he badly wanted to attend a hearing on whether he overstepped federal law with his sweeping tariffs, but he decided against it, saying it would have been a distraction.
Adam Winkler, a constitutional law professor at UCLA, told the The Associated Press that Trump’s attending SCOTUS oral arguments signals how important the president views this case.
However, Trump’s presence “is unlikely to sway the justices,” Winkler said, adding that the SCOTUS justices “pride themselves in their independence, even if some agree with much of Trump’s agenda.”
The fanfare of Trump being in the courtroom will make for a different experience for the justices themselves, however, as “Trump’s presence will make the atmosphere a little bit more circus-like,” Winkler said.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer is making his ninth Supreme Court argument and second in as many weeks. Sauer’s biggest win to date was the presidential immunity decision that spared Trump from being tried for his effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Sauer was a Supreme Court law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia early in his legal career.
ACLU legal director Cecillia Wang, the child of Chinese immigrants, is presenting her second argument to the Supreme Court. In the first Trump administration, a 5-4 conservative majority ruled against Wang’s clients in another immigration case.
It’s not an April Fool’s joke. Alito was born this day in 1950. Only Thomas, who turns 78 in June, is older than Alito among the nine justices.
In the post-pandemic era, the other justices allow the 77-year-old Thomas, the longest-serving member of the court, to pose a question or two before the free-for-all begins.
In a second round of questioning, the justices ask questions in order of seniority. Chief Justice John Roberts, whose center chair makes him the most senior, gets the first crack.
The justices have routinely gone beyond the allotted time since returning to the courtroom following the Covid-19 pandemic.
A buzzer and the court marshal’s cry, “All rise,” signal the justices’ entrance from behind red curtains. The livestream won’t kick in for several minutes, until after the ceremonial swearing-in of lawyers to the Supreme Court bar.
FILE - The U.S. Supreme Court is seen in Washington on Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
People arrive to walk inside the U.S. Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. The Supreme Court justices will hear oral arguments today on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
