Judicial Imperialism: The House of Boasberg and the Left’s War on Sovereignty

The Supreme Court’s order on Monday granting the Trump administration’s emergency request to lift a lower court stay on deportations of certain Venezuelan nationals was unsigned, swift, and unmistakable in its signal—or signals.

For now, the executive branch retains its sovereign authority to enforce immigration law. And for President Trump, now in his second, non-consecutive term, the ruling marked an early victory in a week that would yield several more.

But if constitutionalists interpret this as a decisive turning point, they misread the terrain. The Left’s lawfare brigades remain dug in—launching salvo after salvo—with their campaign of sabotage unfolding in courtrooms and press releases alike, aimed less at justice than at jurisdictional chaos, narrative warfare, and no matter what, thwarting the duly-elected president of the United States.

Make no mistake: this is a war of attrition—not waged with ballots or legislation, but with briefs and bench rulings. It aims to nullify the last presidential election—and a statute nearly as old as the Constitution itself. Its arsenal: blunt injunctions and the sharpened blades of ideological jurisprudence.

This latest flashpoint emerged from a power grab cloaked in humanitarian concern. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of Washington, D.C., issued a temporary restraining order halting the deportation of alleged members of Tren de Aragua, Venezuela’s most violent criminal syndicate—now embedded within U.S. borders, a legacy of the Biden-era’s open-border indulgence.

The pretext? A thin, uncorroborated assertion that deportees might suffer mistreatment upon return—despite repeated designations of Tren de Aragua by U.S. and allied authorities as a transnational criminal and terrorist organization. That dubious claim, transformed by judicial alchemy, became a sweeping due process theory—crafted to trigger habeas-like relief without the inconvenience of habeas itself.

Yes, you read that paragraph right: the court was seriously entertaining the claim that confirmed members of a violent, terror-affiliated syndicate faced undue risk if returned to El Salvador—or to Venezuela, the failed narco-state that birthed them.

It is not merely misguided but absurd to suggest that the United States must offer asylum and sanctuary to such actors under the pretense of civil liberty.

This isn’t law—it’s the resistance in judicial vestments, cloaked in authority but animated by politics.

The dissents came from Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson—and Justice Barrett, who partially dissented on procedural grounds. Her equivocation underscores a sobering reality: even on bedrock questions of executive power, the Court’s center-right bloc now hedges where once it would have roared.

Reasonable minds can debate whether ACB is center-right—or simply wears a stripe all her own. The spirit of David Souter lives on.

The ruling was handed down through what critics deride as the “shadow docket”—a phrase invented not to inform but to impugn decisions that obstruct progressive priorities.

Pro tip: If you see those words in coverage, the odds are that the Left lost.

But there was nothing shadowy here. Boasberg’s order purported to affect individuals beyond his jurisdiction—many of whom were held in Texas, already deported or in international airspace when the order was issued.

Boasberg’s reach wasn’t legal—it was imperial. His ruling crossed state lines and national borders, arrogating to a D.C. courtroom powers the Constitution never envisioned. It was judicial maximalism masquerading as executive oversight.

Even more telling, the plaintiffs initially filed their case as a habeas petition—the one legal pathway the Supreme Court recognizes under the Alien Enemies Act. Then they dropped it. Why? Because habeas requires jurisdiction in the district of confinement—Texas, not Washington.

By dismissing their habeas claims and seeking class-wide declaratory and injunctive relief instead, the plaintiffs and their legal counsel effectively admitted what the Court later confirmed: their filing was forum-shopping disguised as civil rights litigation.

Boasberg took the bait and granted provisional class certification for “[a]ll noncitizens in U.S. custody who are subject to” Presidential Proclamation No. 10903—transforming a handful of cases into a nationwide blockade of immigration enforcement.

This is imperial lawfare by battering ram—assaulting the presidency and dismembering well-settled law, all under the pretense of equitable relief.

The Supreme Court made that plain, vacating his order and reminding the bench that under Ludecke and Heikkila, judicial review under the Alien Enemies Act is strictly limited—and venue lies solely in the district of confinement.

For these detainees, that means Texas, not Washington. Boasberg had no business taking the case, much less freezing national deportation policy from chambers well beyond the reach of his jurisdiction.

Justice Sotomayor’s dissent claimed the Alien Enemies Act cannot be invoked because the U.S. is not formally at war with Venezuela. That argument may find favor in Ivy League faculty lounges, but it collapses under textual and historical scrutiny.

The AEA explicitly applies in cases of invasion. Given the cartel-fueled incursion at our southern border—overseen and excused by the previous administration—the threshold has been met. Congress hasn’t issued a formal declaration of war since 1942. Are judges now the arbiters of armed conflict and foreign threats?

Justice Jackson’s dissent was even more revealing. She faulted her “fly-by-night” colleagues in the majority for failing to demonstrate urgency—a strange threshold for a case involving terrorism-linked deportations and foreign affairs. But what, precisely, is more urgent than a federal judge overriding national security deportation protocol?

Notwithstanding the dissents, the AEA remains a binding precedent. It is not some dusty relic but a cornerstone of wartime executive authority in times of incursion and national peril. If the Left wishes to repeal it, let them try through legislation.

Until then, it governs, and judges who disregard it are not interpreting the law but trespassing into the realm of the two political branches.

Yet this case was never truly about Venezuelan gang members. It was about jurisdiction and venue shopping, media manipulation, and the sabotage of immigration law through procedural sleight.

The Left’s strategy is tired but effective: file in friendly jurisdictions—D.C., San Francisco, Manhattan—seek emergency relief, spin the narrative, and dare the executive to fight back.

While limited in scope, the Supreme Court’s ruling delivers a necessary check on the wholesale venue shopping that has increasingly defined the Left’s legal strategy.

The Lords Temporal of the Legal Left are evolving their playbook, refining old tactics with fresh legal cosmetics and deeper entrenchment. The ACLU has already begun seeking class-action certification in at least one case.

It would function as a nationwide injunction in all but name if granted. But federal law—specifically, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1)—forbids lower courts from enjoining immigration enforcement on a class-wide basis. Only the Supreme Court has that power.

President Trump understands the institutional battlefield. Every legal victory is met with fresh filings and new injunctions. For the activist bench, defeat is never a setback—it’s merely the fault of a “far-right” Supreme Court stacked with flag-waving Republican appointees.

Never mind that it falls to the high court to correct the constitutional overreach of the courts below. The left-wing legal cabal will file again—somewhere, anywhere—until the judiciary finally says no.

And when it does, the same crowd that preaches reverence for “our sacred institutions” will savage them without hesitation or shame.

This ruling was a necessary and overdue correction. But if the conservative majority hopes to repel the judicial coup against executive power, one ruling won’t suffice. They must hold the line—ruling after ruling, challenge after challenge.

For now, this is a win. But make no mistake: the war is far from over. It has only just begun. Stay tuned—the next battle is already on the docket.

Charlton Allen is an attorney, former chief executive officer, and chief judicial officer of the North Carolina Industrial Commission. He is the founder of the Madison Center for Law & Liberty, Inc., editor of The American Salient, and the host of the Modern Federalist podcast. X: @CharltonAllenNC

Image: Free image, Pixabay license.

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