Update: The Trump Administration Just Disregarded a Court Order to Stop Deportations

Axios reports the "White House is not denying it ignored the judge's order".

Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash

A follow-up to this morning's analysis on the Trump administration's deportation actions.

Hours after my initial reporting on the Trump administration's apparent disregard for Judge James Boasberg's court order halting deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, new information has emerged.

According to exclusive reporting from Axios, administration officials are now offering a specific legal rationale for their actions: they claim the judge's order did not apply because the deportation flights were already over international waters when it was issued. "They were already outside of US airspace. We believe the order is not applicable," a senior administration official told Axios reporter Marc Caputo.

What makes this explanation particularly striking is how it contrasts with the administration's public messaging. While White House lawyers were apparently constructing careful jurisdictional arguments behind the scenes, the public narrative from the highest levels of government has been markedly different—one of open defiance rather than technical legal compliance.

The Axios report reveals previously unknown details about the operation's architecture. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller "orchestrated" the process alongside Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem, with few others aware of the plan. "We wanted them on the ground first, before a judge could get the case, but this is how it worked out," an administration official acknowledged to Axios.

This timeline adds important context to the events described in my earlier reporting.

The administration signed the executive order on Friday night without public announcement, and when news leaked of Trump’s decision to invoke the Alien Enemies Act on Saturday morning, officials scrambled to get planes airborne—suggesting a deliberate strategy to outpace judicial intervention.

When Judge Boasberg issued his order at approximately 6:51 p.m. Saturday, both flights were reportedly near Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Administration lawyers then advised against redirecting the flights, setting up the confrontation that would unfold over the next twenty-four hours.

The candid admission from a senior White House official who told Axios: "This is headed to the Supreme Court. And we're going to win" is deeply troubling. This statement reveals a calculated approach to constitutional boundaries—one predicated on confidence that the administration's interpretation of executive power will ultimately be validated by a sympathetic SCOTUS.

After Axios published its reporting, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a more formally crafted statement declaring that "federal courts generally have no jurisdiction over the President's conduct of foreign affairs, his authorities under the Alien Enemies Act, and his core Article II powers."

She concluded with the extraordinary claim that "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."

This framing—equating a commercial deportation flight to a military vessel and characterizing the deportees as "terrorists"—represents a significant escalation in the administration's rhetoric.

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