President Donald Trump speaks during an “Invest in America” roundtable with business leaders at the White House, Monday, June 9, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Evan Vucci).
A Maryland federal judge on Friday found the Trump administration in contempt for serially violating three separate court orders by “wrongfully” deporting a young man to El Salvador.
Since November 2024, a class of immigrants were supposed to have been protected from deportation while their pending asylum claims were being dealt with by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). This agreement was commemorated in a court order issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
In early 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents violated that injunction and infamously put several men an aircraft with some 250 others – sending them to the notorious prison in El Salvador known as The Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
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Since litigation began, motions practice in the class action has voluminous and concerned several different habeas corpus petitioners filing under the umbrella of that original protective order.
Violations of the original court order, as well as remedial court orders issued by U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, have been rampant.
As of this writing, the case docket contains 715 entries. The latest entry concerns a petitioner only identified by his initials, ELA, in order to “protect his identity and sensitive personal information, as he is a young person seeking asylum who is now in the country from which he sought asylum,” an early September court filing explains.
“Two times in the last six months, Defendants have placed Class Member ELA on a plane to El Salvador, the country in which he fears persecution, and removed him in violation of the Settlement Agreement and this Court’s Orders,” a brief in support of a motion to enforce the settlement agreement filed by ELA’s attorneys explains.
The underlying contempt motion details the violations:
Despite the Settlement Agreement and the Court’s orders, E.L.A. was removed in March 2026. After being returned to the United States in August 2026 due to the advocacy of Class Counsel, Defendants yet again removed E.L.A. from this country on September 1, 2026. Because E.L.A. is a Class Member who has been removed to El Salvador, the country from which he fears persecution, in violation of the Settlement Agreement and this Court’s orders, Class Counsel asks that the Court hold Defendants in civil contempt of the Court’s November 25, 2024, April 23, 2025, and July 29, 2026 orders.
Now, in a terse, two-page court order and a sealed memorandum opinion, the court has agreed with the petitioner’s counsel.
“Defendants are hereby found to be in contempt of this Court’s November 25, 2024, April 23, 2025, and July 29, 2026, orders as a result of their removal of E.L.A. to El Salvador in violation of this Court’s orders,” Gallagher writes.
While the court’s reasoning is currently under lock and key, the early September support brief likely contains relevant details.
“Defendants have not offered any legal grounds for ELA’s detention to this Court, Class Counsel or immigration counsel, nor in response to ELA’s habeas petition,” the petitioner’s attorneys note. “Defendants cannot point to pending removal proceedings, nor a final, unexecuted order of removal.”
Rather, ELA was granted special protections because he was a minor when s first deported, the motion explains. After that, ELA was granted humanitarian parole — which still has 10 months remaining — before he was deported a second time, his attorneys note.
“And, ELA has made clear that he intends to pursue an asylum adjudication on the merits and will attend the asylum interview,” the motion goes on. “Had this not been his intention, he would have not returned to the United States.”
On top of being repeatedly deported in defiance of those protections and in violation of the court’s orders, the government has also “confiscated his personal belongings, forced him on a plane, and again removed him to El Salvador, leaving him stranded there with no belongings, money, or even his phone, wearing a detention jumpsuit and no change of clothes,” the motion continues.
To that end, the court ordered the Trump administration to return ELA to the country “and refrain from executing any final removal order against him until (i) USCIS issues a Final Determination on one properly filed asylum application under the terms of the Settlement Agreement or (ii) the Settlement Agreement expires.”
The government must also return all of the petitioner’s “property and documents that were removed from his person at the time of his wrongful removal,” Gallagher ordered.
The post ‘Wrongful removal’: Trump-appointed judge finds ICE in contempt for repeatedly violating court orders by sending ‘young person’ to El Salvador, orders his return to the U.S. first appeared on Law & Crime.
