A federal court appeared reluctant on Friday to force the Trump administration to bring back the Venezuelan men it deported to a prison in El Salvador.
A three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on whether dozens of Venezuelans sent to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, should get hearings to challenge the legality of their removal.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg previously ordered the federal government to return the Venezuelan nationals, saying the administration flagrantly violated the migrants’ due process rights when it labeled them members of the Tren de Aragua gang and rapidly deported them. The men have since been released from CECOT and are back in Venezuela, though some have fled to other countries.
The appeals panel seemed less sure about bringing the deportees back. Two judges on the panel — Circuit Judges Neomi Rao, a Trump-appointee, and Raymond Randolph, appointed by former President George H. W. Bush — said that bringing the immigrants back to the U.S. would return them to detention when they’re already free in Venezuela.
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“They’re not in custody now, and if any one of these individuals decides to show up at the border they would be in custody, and that’s the remedy,” Randolph said.
Lee Gelernt, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing the Venezuelans, said the court could not allow the government to dump people in a prison in a foreign country without giving them the opportunity to get relief.
“There are some we can’t find because they’re in hiding in Venezuela,” Gelernt said. “We will find them eventually, but it’s not as if they’re released and they’re walking around in a free country.”
The government argued that it didn’t have control over the deportees when they were in CECOT. Now that they have been released, there’s nothing the U.S. government can do, Justice Department attorney Tiberius Davis said.
“Obviously the people were released to Venezuela, they’re either free or have traveled to other countries, nobody contends that we have custody over them, and I think that that certainly shows that the case is moot here,” Davis said.
Circuit Judge Harry T. Edwards, appointed by former President Jimmy Carter, criticized Davis’ argument that the Trump administration didn’t have custody of the migrants.
The oral argument marked the next phase of the legal battle that is all but certain to end up back at the Supreme Court. In April 2025, the justices gave President Donald Trump approval to carry out the removal of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act, but stipulated that the immigrants have a chance to challenge their deportations.
Next week, the entire D.C. appeals court will hold a hearing on whether Boasberg can pursue a contempt investigation against Justice Department officials for ignoring his order to turn around a flight taking migrants to CECOT. Rao, who was part of Friday’s panel, was one of the appellate judges who stopped Boasberg’s contempt inquiry in April.
“These two cases will collectively decide whether the rule of law is going to remain strong in this country or whether the Trump administration is going to get away with violating court orders and thumbing their nose at the courts,” Gelernt told The Washington Sun before the hearing.
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