WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. appeals court overturned on Friday a lower court’s ruling that found probable cause to hold Trump administration officials in contempt of court over their handling of the deportations of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants under a centuries-old wartime law.
The decision was a win for Republican President Donald Trump and his allies, who have argued some judges are overstepping their authority and thwarting the executive branch’s broad power to conduct foreign policy and law enforcement as it sees fit.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg found in April that officials could face criminal contempt charges for willfully disregarding his March 15 order barring the deportations to El Salvador of alleged Venezuelan gang members under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act without the chance to challenge their removals.
That ruling marked a dramatic escalation in a confrontation between the administration and the judiciary. Trump’s critics say his administration has demonstrated a willingness to ignore unfavorable orders from the courts, a co-equal branch of government under the U.S. constitution.
On Friday, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the government in its appeal of Boasberg’s ruling by a 2-1 vote.
“The District Court’s order raises troubling questions about judicial control over core executive functions like the conduct of foreign policy and the prosecution of criminal offenses,” Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas, who was appointed by Trump during his first term as president, wrote in an opinion.
Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, also a Trump appointee, wrote a concurring opinion, with Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard, an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama, dissenting.
“Our system of courts cannot long endure if disappointed litigants defy court orders with impunity rather than legally challenge them,” Pillard wrote.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the migrants, had no immediate comment.
The contempt ruling stemmed from Boasberg’s order that the administration return to the U.S. hundreds of Venezuelans who had been swiftly deported to a prison in El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act, used to intern and deport people of Japanese, German and Italian descent during World War Two.
That ruling was meant to preserve Boasberg’s jurisdiction as he weighed the ACLU’s challenge to the legality of the deportations. Trump administration officials argued that the order to return migrants who had already been deported improperly interfered with U.S. foreign policy.
Last month, the 252 deported Venezuelans being held at El Salvador’s notorious CECOT maximum security prison were released and sent home to Venezuela as part of a coordinated prisoner exchange in which 10 Americans held in Venezuela returned to the United States.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York and Andrew Goudsward in Washington; Editing by Mark Porter and Nia Williams)
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