The dispute stems from March 2025 when President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act against members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal gang and foreign terrorist organization. After two planes carrying suspected gang members departed for El Salvador, a D.C. district court issued a temporary restraining order barring further removals.
Writing for the majority, Circuit Judge Rao held that the district court's criminal contempt investigation exceeded its authority because the underlying restraining order was insufficiently clear to support contempt charges. "The TRO simply said nothing about transferring custody, nor did the district court prohibit the transfer of custody in oral statements," Rao wrote. "In our constitutional system of government, criminal liability cannot turn on the unstated intentions (or post hoc assertions) of a district court judge."
The court reserved its harshest language for the district court's expanding inquiry, which had grown from simply identifying responsible officials to conducting hearings allowing opposing counsel to question government witnesses. "The widening gyre of the district court's investigation again calls for the extraordinary remedy of mandamus to halt the judicial impairment of another branch in the performance of its constitutional duties," Rao wrote.
The case began more than a year earlier when Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act in March 2025 after designating Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization. The President found the gang was operating "at the direction" of Venezuelan authorities to "invade" and "conduct irregular warfare" against the United States. This marked the government's second petition for mandamus in the case, after the D.C. Circuit had previously vacated the district court's initial probable cause finding for criminal contempt.
Circuit Judge Walker filed a separate concurrence focusing on the district court's assurance to counsel that "you don't have to race to write it down" because a written order would memorialize all requirements. Walker argued this made the written order supersede any broader oral directive.
Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, arguing that mandamus was inappropriate at this interlocutory stage. "Contempt of court is a public offense, and the fate of our democratic republic will depend on whether we treat it as such," Jackson wrote.