The case arose from President Trump's March 2025 invocation of the Alien Enemies Act against alleged members of Tren de Aragua, described in court documents as a Venezuelan criminal gang designated as a foreign terrorist organization. After suspected gang members were placed on planes to El Salvador, a D.C. district court issued a temporary restraining order enjoining the government from removing class members pursuant to the presidential proclamation.
The Supreme Court later vacated that TRO, holding it was brought under the wrong legal theory in the wrong venue. Despite the Supreme Court's vacatur, the district court proceeded with criminal contempt proceedings, holding there was probable cause that the government violated the TRO by transferring the detainees to Salvadoran custody after the planes landed.
Circuit Judge Rao, writing for a 2-1 panel joined by Judge Walker, rejected the district court's interpretation of its own order. "Criminal contempt cannot lie for transferring custody when the TRO was entirely silent as to that requirement," Judge Rao wrote. The majority concluded that the TRO's prohibition on "removing" detainees referred to territorial removal from the United States, not custody transfers.
The government had identified Secretary Noem as the responsible official but objected to further proceedings as exceeding the court's authority. Judge Rao agreed, writing that "the district court proposes to probe high-level Executive Branch deliberations about matters of national security and diplomacy" in proceedings that constitute "a clear abuse of discretion."
Judge Childs issued a lengthy dissent, arguing that the majority had improperly terminated the district court's factfinding process. "Today, we are not reviewing a judgment of contempt made by the trial court, nor are we even reviewing a referral for a contempt prosecution," Childs wrote. "Instead, we examine an interlocutory order from a district court that... is just trying to understand the events of a single weekend in March."