As President Donald Trump continues battling the federal judicial system, an appellate court is siding with a lower court in one of the most controversial cases to besiege the Trump administration.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied the president’s request for a stay of District Court Judge James Boasberg’s temporary restraining order (TRO) halting the deportation of foreign terrorist criminals affiliated with the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang. Judges Karen Henderson (appointed by George H.W. Bush) and Patricia Millett (appointed by Barack Obama) denied Trump’s request for a stay, allowing Boasberg’s TRO to remain in effect. Judge Justin R. Walker (appointed by Trump) dissented and would have granted the stay.

Earlier this month, the president invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (AEA), a wartime law giving him sweeping powers to arrest, detain, and deport foreign nationals who come from countries with whom the U.S. is currently in conflict. Under the provisions of the AEA, the Trump administration began the deportation of Venezuelan nationals, whom law enforcement had identified as members of TdA. Almost immediately, Boasberg issued a TRO preventing the Trump administration from deporting TdA members, later arguing that the president and his deputies must afford TdA members “due process” prior to removing them from the country.

Trump administration officials have argued that the president’s use of the AEA is not subject to judicial review and, further, that district courts have no jurisdiction to impose nationwide injunctions and TROs halting the president’s agenda. The president appealed Boasberg’s TRO, asking the appellate court to strike it down. While the appellate judges clarified that TROs are generally not subject to appellate review, the fact that Boasberg’s order specifically applied to the president lent the case enough gravity to merit review.

In her opinion denying a stay of Boasberg’s TRO, the Republican-appointed Henderson did demand that Boasberg narrow the scope of his TRO to ensure that it did not enjoin the president, but ultimately stated, “At this early stage, the government has yet to show a likelihood of success on the merits. The equities favor the plaintiffs. And the district court entered the TROs for a quintessentially valid purpose: to protect its remedial authority long enough to consider the parties’ arguments.”

Millett largely concurred, although on rather different grounds, writing that the Trump administration “seeks exceptional emergency relief from temporary restraining orders that do just one thing — prevent the summary removal of Venezuelan immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador or other unknown locations without first affording them some semblance of due process to contest the legal and factual bases for removal.” The Obama-appointed jurist continued, “The district court has been handling this matter with great expedition and circumspection, and its orders do nothing more than freeze the status quo until weighty and unprecedented legal issues can be addressed through a soon-forthcoming preliminary injunction proceeding.”

“There is neither jurisdiction nor reason for this court to interfere at this very preliminary stage or to allow the government to singlehandedly moot the Plaintiffs’ claims by immediately removing them beyond the reach of their lawyers or the court,” she added. “The Constitution’s demand of due process cannot be so easily thrown aside.”

Walker, in his dissent, summarized the case’s origins, writing, “Tren de Aragua is a violent criminal organization linked to Venezuela. The President invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove its members from our country. Venezuelan nationals alleged to be members of this group were swiftly sent to a detention center in Texas for summary removal.” Noting that five Venezuelans slated for deportation had filed a habeas corpus claim, he continued:

“The problem for the Plaintiffs is that habeas claims must be brought in the district where the Plaintiffs are confined. For the named Plaintiffs at least, that is the Southern District of Texas. Because the Plaintiffs sued in the District of Columbia, the Government is likely to succeed in its challenge to the district court’s orders. The Government has also shown that the district court’s orders threaten irreparable harm to delicate negotiations with foreign powers on matters concerning national security. And that harm, plus the asserted public interest in swiftly removing dangerous aliens, outweighs the Plaintiffs’ desire to file a suit in the District of Columbia that they concede they could have brought in Texas — and that longstanding legal principles regarding habeas require them to have brought in Texas.”

Walker’s point is has underpinned discussion of the ongoing conflict between the executive and the judicial branches lately: the jurisdiction of district courts and their authority to issue sweeping nationwide injunctions and TROs. As The Washington Stand previously reported, congressional Republicans are moving on legislation to bar district courts from issuing nationwide injunctions, instead limiting the scope of their relief only to the parties involved in a case and to the district over which the judge has jurisdiction. The Trump administration has, over the course of the last three months, been impeded by at least 15 nationwide injunctions, far outpacing any president elected in the 21st century. As in Trump’s first term, almost all of the injunctions issued against his executive orders and actions have originated with Democrat-appointed judges.

In comments to The Washington Stand, constitutional attorney and Article III Project Founder Mike Davis declared, “The widespread judicial sabotage from activist judges is out of control. We can’t allow this constitutional crisis to go on. The judiciary can’t afford to lose its legitimacy. President Trump’s first term was sabotaged by activist judges and prosecutors, and we can’t have that happen again.”

During Trump’s first four years in the White House, judges imposed 64 nationwide injunctions on his administration. Over 92% of those injunctions were issued by Democrat-appointed judges. Already, of the at least 69 judges overseeing cases brought against the Trump administration in the president’s second term, over two-thirds were appointed by Democrats, mostly by Obama and Joe Biden. This all comes on the heels of a new report that a third of D.C. District Court judges weren’t born in the United States.

The latest case to be sent to a Democrat-appointed judge has been sent to, of all people, Boasberg. A civil action brought against the Trump administration is aimed at subjecting a controversial Signal group chat — in which administration officials discussed military action against the Yemen-based Islamist organization called Houthi — to the Federal Records Act.

The president, who has previously called for Boasberg to be impeached, questioned the likelihood of so many administration-related lawsuits being assigned to the judge. Trump also said of Boasberg, “He is Highly Conflicted, not only in his hatred of me — Massive Trump Derangement Syndrome! — but also, because of disqualifying family conflicts. Boasberg, who is the Chief Judge of the D.C. District Court, seems to be grabbing the ‘Trump Cases’ all to himself, even though it is not supposed to happen that way.” He added, “Our Nation’s Courts are broken, with New York and D.C. being the most preeminent of all in their Corruption and Radicalism. There must be an immediate investigation of this Rigged System, before it is too late!”