J.G.G. v. Trump: Constructive Custody, Contempt, and the Return of the CECOT Class
- Citation
- J.G.G. v. Trump, No. 1:25-cv-00766 (D.D.C. Dec. 22, 2025) (Boasberg, C.J.)
- Court
- U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
- Judge
- Chief Judge James E. Boasberg
- Statute
- 28 U.S.C. § 2241; Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause; Alien Enemies Act, 50 U.S.C. § 21
- Holding
- United States maintained “constructive custody” of class members removed to CECOT on March 15–16, 2025; class entitled to due-process hearings or return; government ordered to submit a remediation plan by January 5, 2026.
Of all the rulings to emerge from the Alien Enemies Act litigation of 2025, none has tested the outer boundaries of habeas relief more aggressively than Chief Judge James E. Boasberg’s December 22, 2025 opinion in J.G.G. v. Trump. The opinion takes the unusual step of holding that the United States retained “constructive custody” of approximately two hundred Venezuelan nationals delivered on March 15 and 16, 2025 to El Salvador’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, and orders the government to either bring those individuals back or supply them with the due process they were owed before being removed in the first place.
How the case got here
After the Supreme Court’s April 7 ruling in Trump v. J.G.G. vacated the original D.D.C. TRO, the case did not end. The migrants who had been removed before any court order took effect remained at CECOT, held incommunicado for what would become 125 days. The original named plaintiffs and the ACLU returned to D.D.C. with a narrower theory: not that the AEA could be enjoined as such (the Supreme Court had said habeas in the district of confinement was the way to do that), but that the petitioners who had been physically removed in violation of the original TRO retained habeas rights against the United States, the entity that continued to exercise effective control over their confinement.
On June 4, 2025, Judge Boasberg certified the “CECOT Class” — all noncitizens removed to CECOT on March 15 or 16, 2025 under the AEA proclamation — and ordered the government to facilitate their ability to pursue habeas. On July 18, 2025, in connection with a separate prisoner exchange, most of the class was flown from CECOT to Venezuela and released. By October the class had largely been dispersed, but the legal questions remained.
The constructive-custody holding
The December 22 opinion confronts the foundational habeas question: who is the proper respondent when the United States transports a person to a foreign jail and the foreign jailer is acting under U.S. direction and at U.S. expense? Boasberg’s answer is that the agreements between the United States and El Salvador, the payments accompanying the transfers, and the operational control U.S. officials exercised over which migrants were taken, when, and to what facility, together suffice to establish “constructive custody” under longstanding habeas precedent.
“The Government cannot evade habeas review by depositing a petitioner in a foreign jail of its choosing and then declaring that the keys are no longer in its hands.”
The court ordered the government to file a plan by January 5, 2026 either (1) to facilitate the return of class members and afford them the notice-and-hearing process the Supreme Court required in A.A.R.P., or (2) to provide such hearings in their current locations. The opinion notes that even those class members released back to Venezuela continue to suffer collateral consequences from the AEA designation — the FTO designation, asset seizures, asylum bars — that an after-the-fact hearing could potentially address.
The contempt sub-plot
Running alongside the merits is a contempt proceeding that has been twice stayed by panels of the D.C. Circuit. On April 16, 2025, Judge Boasberg found probable cause to hold the government in criminal contempt for the March 15 violation of his original TRO, characterizing the conduct as “willful disregard” of a court order. A two-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit (both Trump appointees) repeatedly issued mandamus orders blocking the contempt inquiry from proceeding, the most recent in November 2025. Boasberg has continued to develop the underlying record while the appellate intervention plays out.
Why it matters
The opinion is a deliberate test of whether the writ of habeas corpus retains operational force when the executive removes a person to a foreign jurisdiction in defiance of a court order. The Supreme Court’s own decision in Noem v. Abrego Garcia — ordering the government to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia after a conceded administrative-error removal — supplies the constructive-custody groundwork. J.G.G.’s December 22 ruling extends that logic from a single conceded mistake to a class of two hundred. Whether the D.C. Circuit and ultimately the Supreme Court will let it stand will tell us a great deal about whether the Great Writ still reaches an Executive that is determined to use foreign geography to evade it.
Filed under The Alien Enemies Act. Published December 22, 2025.