MAGA joined forces Sunday night to defend the Trump administration’s decision to ignore a federal judge’s order to turn back deportation flights en route to El Salvador.
On Saturday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting Venezuelan migrants under the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority that allows summary deportation of people from countries at war with America. Trump invoked the act to target members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Citing White House sources, Axios and CNN reported that the Trump administration decided not to heed the order to turn around flights, arguing that they were already outside U.S. airspace.
“The Administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN. “The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory.”
On Sunday afternoon, President Donald Trump posted a three-minute video of deportation flights on Truth Social.
“These are the monsters sent into our Country by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats,” he wrote. “How dare they!”
The president’s allies, including Vice President JD Vance, followed suit, hailing the deportation flights on their own social media accounts.
“There were violent criminals and rapists in our country,” he said. “Democrats fought to keep them here. President Trump deported them.”
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, issued a warning to criminals: “You break into our country. Attack our people. Menace our citizens. You will pay the consequences. Leave now — or face justice.”
Axios reported that Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “orchestrated” the plan to keep the deportation flights in the air. A White House official reportedly said they didn’t intend to defy the court order, “but this is how it worked out.”
Harrison Fields, a White House principal deputy press secretary, took a swipe at the judiciary over the order.
“When you have a political party and a media establishment actively working to protect dangerous criminals in our country, aided by judges who seem more focused on undermining the Constitution and disregarding the will of the people, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the true threat may be coming from within,” he wrote on X.
Republican senator Eli Crane echoed Fields: “The activist judges were suspiciously quiet when Joe Biden enacted all the policies that led to gang members ENTERING America. How’s that work? Only vocal when President Trump DEPORTS them?”
Leavitt and MAGA firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene said Americans “voted for” the deportation flights.
“This is what we campaigned for, promised, and President Trump is delivering,” Greene said.
The Trump administration has grown increasingly frustrated with federal judges blocking its sweeping efforts to overhaul the government and enforce its long-promised deportation blitz.
In a series of emergency filings with the Supreme Court last week, the administration said nationwide injunctions have reached “epidemic proportions” since Trump returned to office.
“That sharp rise in universal injunctions stops the Executive Branch from performing its constitutional functions before any courts fully examine the merits of those actions, and threatens to swamp this Court’s emergency docket,” acting solicitor general Sarah Harris wrote.
