The case stems from President Trump's March 2025 invocation of the Alien Enemies Act against alleged members of Tren de Aragua, which the administration described as a Venezuelan criminal gang and 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 that the challenge was brought under the wrong legal theory in the wrong venue. Despite the vacatur, the district court proceeded with criminal contempt proceedings, finding probable cause that the government violated the TRO by transferring the detainees to Salvadoran custody after the planes landed.
Circuit Judge Rao, writing for the 2-1 majority joined by Circuit Judge Walker, held that the TRO could not support criminal contempt. "Criminal contempt cannot lie for transferring custody when the TRO was entirely silent as to that requirement," Judge Rao wrote. The panel 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 wrote 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."
Circuit Judge Childs dissented, 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," Judge 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."
The D.C. Circuit's grant of mandamus terminates the contempt inquiry.