It opens like this: a federal district judge decided he could micromanage deportation flights in real time—then the appellate court yanked the reins and reminded everyone that courts are not mini State Departments. On August 8, 2025, a divided D.C. Circuit panel vacated Judge James Boasberg’s criminal-contempt gambit against Trump officials over the Venezuela-to-El-Salvador deportation flights, a clean 2–1 win for the administration and a sharp curb on trial-court overreach into executive foreign-affairs turf. Read about it here from Reuters and the AP.
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Start with the players. In the district court, Chief Judge James E. Boasberg (D-D.C.) presided over J.G.G. v. Trump (No. 25-766), a class action/habeas mash-up brought by Venezuelan detainees swept up under the administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. Boasberg’s own
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