OAN Staff James Meyers
2:06 PM – Tuesday, March 18, 2025
A federal judge who temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s bid to rapidly deport Venezuelan gang members via the 18th century Alien Enemies Act is facing an impeachment push.
Just after the judge’s temporary order was issued, Representative Brandon Gill (R-Texas) announced plans to file articles of impeachment against the judge, which garnered praise from Tesla founder Elon Musk.
“Necessary,” Musk wrote on X after Gill revealed his plans to introduce articles of impeachment against the judge.
“The very worst judges – those who repeatedly flout the law – should at least be put to an impeachment vote, whether that vote succeeds or not,” Musk followed up in a separate post on X Monday.
Over the weekend, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg imposed a 14-day restraining order on Trump’s ability to use the 1798-era Alien Enemies Act in an effort to speed up the process of deporting members of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Boasberg, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2011, further ordered “any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States however that is accomplished.”
“Another day, another judge unilaterally deciding policy for the whole country. This time to benefit foreign gang members,” Senator Chuck Grassley, (R-Iowa), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, posted on X. “If the Supreme Court or Congress doesn’t fix, we’re headed towards a constitutional crisis. Senate Judiciary Cmte taking action.”
However, the order already came too late for some suspected gang members. On Sunday, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele posted dramatic video footage showing more than 250 Tren de Aragua and MS-13 members who were sent to the Central American country.
Meanwhile, the criminals will be held at Venezuela’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), as part of a deal Bukele struck with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The judge’s temporary order came just hours after the Trump administration enforced executive action to invoke the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act and begin going after members of the Venezuelan gang.
The Texas congressman has been making headlines recently in office. He recently petitioned to deport Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), despite her being an American citizen, introduced legislation to put Trump’s face on the $100 bill.
The Alien Enemies Act gives the Commander in Chief wartime powers to apprehend and expel citizens of an enemy country back home.
When Trump took back the White House in January, he named the Tren de Aragua as a terrorist organization. The gang has been affiliated with human trafficking, drug smuggling and kidnappings.
In his January proclamation, Trump declared that Tren de Aragua and MS-13, “present an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy.”
His big decision to enact wartime power marks the fourth time, with the last use being under former President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the wake of the Japanese attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base. Roosevelt used that power to put Japanese, German and Italians into internment camps.
“Over the years, Venezuelan national and local authorities have ceded ever-greater control over their territories to transnational criminal organizations, including TdA,” Trump explained in a statement on his decision to invoke the authority.
“The result is a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States, and which poses a substantial danger to the United States.”
Meanwhile, Boasberg’s temporary pause was intended to give the courts time to further weigh the issue and rule on the lawsuit. Furthermore, the Trump administration has already appealed Boasberg’s order to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
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