Will the Courts Do Anything?

Over the weekend, the Trump Administration ignored a clear court order to not use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. They deported some alleged Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members to El Salvador, and the President, Nayib Bukele, tweaked the nose of the court, and Marco Rubio thanked him on X.

Bukele is the guy who is currently clearing an old-growth forest to build an airport to serve his dream of creating a “Bitcoin hub” in his country. He calls himself the “world’s coolest dictator”. Presumably, he’ll write yet another chapter of loss and despair into his country’s history at some point, but right now he’s riding high in part because he’s hosting a 40,000 person detention center that the Trump Administration will use for deportees that they want to hide. Who needs another Gitmo when you have this guy on your side?

Anyway, the question here is obviously what the court is going to do about this. The judge hearing the case was James Boasberg. He’s an Obama appointee, and chief judge of the DC Circuit. Clearly, someone is in contempt here. Is he going to issue a contempt citation and have the Federal Marshalls go and round some person up? Or is he going to bang his gavel harder?

As usual, my take on this is “Faster, Faster, Disaster”. If Boasberg isn’t going to do anything, let’s find that out as soon as possible, so we can keep track of the institutions, if any, that are going to resist the Trump Administration’s authoritarian takeover. We know Congress isn’t on that list. Universities seem to be unable to muster any response but “please, sir, may I have another?” My guess is that Boasberg, like most lawyers and judges, are heavily invested in the position of the courts in the social hierarchy, and they’re afraid of doing something that will trigger a realization that the courts, like Congress, have almost no influence over the Trump Administration.