A federal judge who temporarily blocked President Trump’s bid to rapidly deport Venezuelan gang members via the 18th century Alien Enemies Act is facing an impeachment push — including by Elon Musk.
Shortly after the judge’s temporary order was issued, Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) announced plans to file articles of impeachment against the judge, drawing praise from Musk.
“Necessary,” Musk wrote on X after Gill revealed his plans to introduce articles of impeachment against the judge.
Earlier in the day Saturday, US District Judge James Boasberg imposed a 14-day restraining order on Trump’s ability to use the 1798-era Alien Enemies Act to bypass the traditional immigration and criminal avenues in order to rapidly deport members of the notorious Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua.
Boasberg, who was appointed by 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.”
But 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.
They will be held at the country’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 mere hours after Trump took executive action to invoke the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act and begin targeting members of the Venezuelan gang.
Musk, 53, has previously groused about federal judges who have held up or scuttled various actions by the Trump administration, particularly rulings that have hamstrung the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) efforts to root out waste.
Gill, 31 is a freshman congressman who recently championed a petition to deport Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) — despite her being an American citizen — and introduced legislation to put Trump’s face on the $100 bill.
The Alien Enemies Act gives the president wartime powers to apprehend and expel citizens of an enemy country back home.
Back in January, Trump had designated Tren de Aragua as a terrorist organization. The transnational criminal has been linked to human trafficking, drug smuggling, kidnappings and more in dozens of states, including New York.
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 decision to invoke the Alien Enemies Act marked the fourth time that wartime power was used, with the most recent instance 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 people of Japanese, German and Italian descent 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.”
Boasberg’s temporary pause on Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act came after an emergency hearing Saturday over a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward, which sued over the deportation of five Venezuelans.
“I do not believe I can wait any longer and am required to act,” Boasber said Saturday.
His temporary pause was intended to give the courts time to further weigh the issue and rule on the lawsuit.
The Trump administration has already appealed Boasberg’s order to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
