By Jenny Braddock
April 17, 2025
We’ve had impeachments. We’ve had indictments. We’ve had 91 felony charges, four courtrooms, and a thousand breathless chyrons. But this? This is new.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt — for defying a federal court order to return asylum seekers who had been unlawfully deported to El Salvador, and instead leaving them imprisoned in one of the most brutal carceral systems in the Western Hemisphere.
And before you assume Boasberg is some MSNBC-friendly liberal in a robe, you should know this: he roomed with Brett Kavanaugh at Yale Law. They still meet annually with a small group of classmates — the kind of federal lifers who rarely speak above a whisper and almost never break ranks. He was appointed by George W. Bush, elevated by Barack Obama, and until now, best known for his unshakeable moderation and poker-faced restraint.
This development has me coming to the conclusion that if Boasberg is willing to publicly suggest that Trump’s administration may have committed a crime — and that prosecutions could follow — it’s not rebellion. It’s a smoke signal from inside the fortress.
Kilmar Ábrego García — the man at the center of this mess. A 29-year-old sheet metal worker from Maryland. Married to a U.S. citizen. Father to a young child. No tattoos.
One mugshot. Zero convictions.
Just a name that showed up in a memo and a government itching to make an example.
The Trump administration says he’s MS-13.
A judge told them to hold off on deporting him until they could prove it.
ICE deported him anyway.
Why? An “administrative error,” they claim. As if you can just accidentally ship someone into a Bukele-run superprison where men are chained in rows and left to rot shirtless under fluorescent lights for the crime of existing in the wrong zip code with the wrong surname.
His lawyers say the gang link is bogus — a smear built on a confidential informant’s hearsay, disputed in court and never substantiated. In fact, a 2019 immigration judge ruled in his favor, granting him protection from deportation after finding his testimony credible and the gang threat against him real. Even U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis criticized the government’s attempt to label him MS-13, noting they presented “no evidence” and that the public accusation itself put his life at risk behind bars in El Salvador.
Meanwhile, García’s wife describes him as a loving partner and father, someone who took counseling seriously and stayed clean. And yet here he is — a ghost in a carceral hellscape, tossed in with ganglords on the strength of bad intel and executive spite, because someone at ICE hit “override” on the Constitution.
This isn’t just about one man. It’s about an administration that knew the court had ruled — and decided it didn’t matter.
That’s not immigration policy.
That’s contempt with credentials.
And if you’re still telling yourself this is about technicalities or turf wars, read this carefully.
President Trump — recently told reporters:
“I have suggested, that you know, why should it stop at people who cross the border illegally? We have some horrible criminals… American grown and born.”
“I think if we could get El Salvador or somebody to take them, I’d be very happy with it — but we’ll have to see what the law says.”
When NPR asked Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Laurence Tribe why we should be worried, he said:
“The reason, I think, was made even clearer by Justice Sotomayor’s concurring statement. She said, ‘The government’s argument implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including US citizens, without legal consequences as long as it does so before a court can intervene.’”
So let’s ask the question plainly:
If that’s the legal framework on the table — if the executive can seize, deport, or detain anyone before a judge steps in — what’s to stop them from using it on political enemies?
Could Joe Biden disappear to a retirement home in El Salvador?
Could Gavin Newsom wake up in handcuffs on a Gulfstream?
Could AOC be airlifted out before Twitter even notices she’s gone?
Sound paranoid? That’s what we said before January 6.
That’s what we said before Gitmo.
That’s what we said before the president publicly floated the idea on a microphone.
This isn’t a hypothetical.
The courts have spoken.
Will the Trump administration adhere to the ruling — or steamroll it with executive force?
The consequences of such a breach aren’t theoretical.
They’re monumental.
That’s not paranoia. That’s precedent.
And let’s be honest: it’s a mash-up of deleted scenes from Brazil, Kafka’s nightmares, and cut pages from Orwell’s 1984 — a legal memo scrawled on the back of a Chili’s napkin, in a country still pretending this is all normal.
The legal rationale used to deport García — a vague gang accusation, paired with ICE’s discretionary power and a shrug toward judicial oversight — is dangerously elastic. Stretch it just a little further and you’re talking about a federal agency rounding up American citizens it finds inconvenient. No judge. No proof. Just a file, a label, and a van.
And don’t think it hasn’t happened. In 2019, ICE detained U.S. citizens who couldn’t prove their status fast enough.
Back then, it was sloppy. Now it’s intentional.
This is where the fork splits.
Either the Trump administration complies with Boasberg’s ruling — fully, publicly, and with consequence —
or we are living in a country where executive branch agencies can ignore the courts with impunity.
That’s the choice.
And if we get it wrong, García won’t be the last one taken.
So here we are. Round One.
The ruling is in. The line is drawn.
Will centuries of legal precedent — from habeas corpus to judicial review — get tossed aside as inconvenient?
This isn’t just about García.
It’s about whether the law still applies to power.
And if it doesn’t, we should all be very, very worried.
Filed from a courthouse that still smells like precedent — for now.
