How to Avoid Deportation as a Test of Executive Branch Authority: A Case Study with Judge Boasberg and the Donald Trump Administration

Boasberg spent about nine years as a judge on D.C.’s municipal court before being promoted to the federal bench by then-President Obama. The Senate confirmed him in a unanimous vote in 2011.

But in the last several days, Judge Boasberg and his court have been drawn into a battle with the Trump administration over immigration enforcement that threatens, more than anything to date, to pitch the branches of government into a constitutional crisis.

Three planes carrying more than 200 migrants from Venezuela were sent to El Salvador by the Trump administration despite a judge ordering a halt to the deportations. The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 gave the president authority to deport foreign citizens if the United States were at war or about to be invaded. Mr. Trump’s order justified the deportations by accusing the migrants of being members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that he charged with “conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise,” of President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela.

For his part, President Trump posted on social media Tuesday that Boasberg should be impeached for acting as a check on executive branch authority. Legal experts said that’s part of a broader campaign by the White House and its allies to intimidate members of the federal judiciary that have blocked some of Trump’s efforts to dismantle the federal government.

The toxic environment that comes with threats of impeachment increases the difficulty of the job, according to Fogel, who leads the Berkeley Judicial Institute.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said. The regular appellate review process exists for that purpose.

A Conversation with Mr. Boasberg on the High-Energy U.S. Attorney’s Office: “The Case for a New Sheriff’s Companion”

A few years ago, he had a knee replacement. But his friend and former colleague Ron Machen said the judge “was actually pretty good” on the basketball court.

After joining the U.S. attorney’s office in 1996 he stayed there for more than five years. Former colleague Glenn Kirschner said Boasberg “never lost a homicide case,” despite taking some of the most difficult assignments in the office at the time.

Boasberg issued a ruling that directed former Vice President Mike Pence to testify to a grand jury as part of a special counsel probe into Trump and the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

He’s made trips to his alma mater, Yale, in order to speak with another judge who is also a member of the Trump administration.

“We socialize with each other, and we genuinely respect each other,” Friedrich said. You can become a better lawyer if you listen to the other side.