John Roberts, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, during the 60th presidential inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025.
Chip Somodevilla | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked President Donald Trump over calling for the impeachment of a federal judge who has issued orders blocking Trump’s plan to deport any more alleged members of a Venezuelan gang from the United States.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a statement on Trump’s demand.
“The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” Roberts said, several hours after Trump said that Chief Judge James Boasberg should be impeached.
Trump in a Truth Social post had written, “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Roberts’ statement.
Boasberg is presiding over a lawsuit challenging the deportations, which the Trump administration argues are authorized under the wartime Alien Enemies Act.
The judge in a hearing Monday in Washington, D.C., federal court, pressed a top Department of Justice lawyer with questions about whether the Trump administration had violated Boasberg’s orders in the case. The DOJ lawyer refused to answer many of those questions.
Later Monday, the DOJ asked the federal appeals court in D.C. to remove Boasberg from the case, and separately asked Boasberg to vacate his orders.
On Tuesday, a top U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official in a declaration filed in Boasberg’s court revealed that a third plane carrying alleged gang members had departed the United States for El Salvador after 7:25 p.m. ET on Saturday, which was after Boasberg had issued an order barring their deportation.
“But all individuals on that third plane had Title 8 final removal orders and thus were not removed solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue” in the lawsuit, the declaration said. “To avoid any doubt, no one on any flight departing the United States after 7:25 PM EDT on March 15, 2025, was removed solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue.”
The filing also said that about 54 alleged members of the Venezuelan gang are in detention now, about 172 alleged members are on the non-detained docket, and about 32 are in criminal custody with active detainers against them.
“Should they be transferred to ICE custody, they will likely be placed in removal proceeding,” the filing said.
James Boasberg, incoming chief judge of the US District Court, in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, March 13, 2023.
Valerie Plesch | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Trump in his Truth Social post raged, “This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President.”
“He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn’t WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he didn’t WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties,” Trump wrote, referring to his own accomplishments of those benchmarks in the 2024 election. “HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING!”
Trump said that he had won the presidential election “for many reasons” but suggested that fighting illegal immigration “may have been the number one reason.”
“WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Boasberg on Saturday issued two orders enjoining Trump from deporting aliens detained in immigration proceedings who are allegedly associated with the Tren de Aragua gang, which the U.S. has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
In a court filing Monday night, the DOJ said Boasberg “lacks jurisdiction because the presidential actions they challenge are not subject to judicial review.”
The Justice Department in the same filing challenged Boasberg’s power to order DOJ lawyers to produce information about the deportations of hundreds of alleged Tren de Aragua members over the weekend to Central America.
At a hearing earlier Monday, a top DOJ lawyer refused to answer Boasberg’s questions about the deportations, citing national security concerns.
The judge has given the DOJ until Tuesday afternoon to respond to questions about its actions, including whether any deportation flight departed the U.S. on Saturday night after he issued his order.
Critics of Trump’s deportation effort have questioned how his administration determined who is a member of the gang.
In a declaration filed Monday with the court, the acting field office director of enforcement and removal operations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wrote, “Agency personnel carefully vetted each individual alien to ensure they were in fact members of TdA.”
The acting director, Robert Cerna, wrote that “It was critical to remove TdA members subject to the [deportation] Proclamation quickly.”
“Keeping them in ICE custody where they could potentially continue to recruit new TdA members posed a grave risk to ICE personnel; other, nonviolent detainees; and the United States as a whole,” Cerna said.
“Holding hundreds of members of a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, where there is an immediate mechanism to remove them, would be irresponsible.”
“While it is true that many of the TdA members removed under the AEA do not have criminal records in the United States, that is because they have only been in the United States for a short period of time,” Cerna wrote.
“The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat. In fact, based upon their association with TdA, the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose. It demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”
