Bombshell report alleges El Salvador disclaimed responsibility for those U.S. sent to CECOT

Challengers filed the document, from a U.N. investigation, in court on Monday. An update on the rule of law: Alien Enemies Act, birthright citizenship, and law firm litigation.

Jul 07, 2025

President Donald Trump has long made a mockery of norms, precipitating the “this is not normal” refrain of his first term. In his second term, going beyond ignoring norms, Trump is seeking to upend the basic building blocks of law in America — and, given this weekend’s South Sudan deportations, the U.S. Supreme Court is not always going to get in his way.

But, the pushback remains, questions are ongoing, and circumstance are rapidly changing in several key areas in which Trump’s actions would fundamentally alter what law means.

A bombshell filing on Monday in one of the Alien Enemies Act cases challenges the truthfulness of the Trump administration’s claims about its agreement with El Salvador regarding the people who have been sent to the country’s notorious CECOT prison.

In the filing, those challenging the administration asserted that officials from El Salvador told the United Nations that it "facilitated the use of the Salvadoran prison infrastructure" by the U.S. but that that “jurisdiction and legal responsibility” for those sent there remains “exclusively” with the U.S. (Much more on that below.)

More broadly, with his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, Trump is attempting to use expansive wartime powers to operationalize a military-based understanding of immigration opposition — and expand underlying wartime powers.

That’s not all, though. With his effort to end birthright citizenship, Trump is seeking to ignore the Fourteenth Amendment’s text and the interpretation of virtually everyone asked to do so since. With his attack on law firms, Trump is hoping to scare would-be defenders of the rule of law into submission by subverting the power of law and using it against them.

There is no Trump-era Supreme Court resolution on any of these issues yet. In the first two, the high court pushed off final resolution on the issue through non-merits rulings in emergency applications brought by the Trump administration to block lower court orders. In the final set of cases, the Justice Department steadfastly avoided appellate review for as long as possible.

Any one of these issues ultimately being decided in Trump’s favor would mark a sharp departure in the rule of law; multiple of them being decided as he wishes would transform what law even means in America. Given that, the mass of crises prompted by this administration’s actions (and inactions) should not push these three issues out of mind.

So, stepping back and diving in, where do things stand in those challenges?

The birthright citizenship cases

After the Supreme Court’s June 27 decision ending “universal injunctions”, as they were called, based on a cramped understanding of the point of law in an opinion by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, lower courts got back to work — assessing two main issues about the proper scope of injunctions after the Trump v. CASA decision. What’s more, they are doing so with a clock running, given that the Supreme Court held that the policy section of Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship would go into effect “30 days after the date of this opinion,“ so, after July 26.

As DOJ later told one federal judge, “July 27, 2025, is the earliest date on which Defendants may begin to apply Executive Order 14160” — the birthright citizenship-ending executive order — “to persons covered by the order.“

The court held that injunctions in general litigation can’t be “broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue.” The main area of litigation outside of that — so with the potential for broad relief — is class-action litigation.

But, a big question left unresolved by Barrett and the court has to be addressed before we even get to class-action lawsuits: Are the injunctions blocking Trump’s order in cases brought by groups of states properly nationwide in scope because the nationwide scope is “necessary to provide complete relief“ to the states that sued?

The states have argued that the only way for their interests to be protected is a nationwide injunction — regardless of whether other states are not suing — because people can travel freely in the United States and this would mean that, for example, children of New Jersey residents might not have citizenship at birth if born in a state that didn’t sue. As such, and as Barrett acknowledged, such a nationwide injunction “does not purport to directly benefit nonparties.“ But, she also noted that the Trump administration argued more narrow relief could be possible. The Supreme Court did not resolve the question, so now lower courts in the two multi-state challenges are addressing that — in different ways.

In State of Washington v. Trump, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where DOJ’s appeal of a preliminary injunction below is pending, issued an order on the date of the CASA opinion, directing the parties to submit briefs “addressing the effect, if any, of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U. S. ____ (2025), on the issues presented in this case.“ Those briefs are due to be submitted by Friday.

In New Jersey v. Trump, on the other hand, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit denied DOJ’s request for supplemental briefing on July 3, instead concluding that the appeals court’s consideration of the post-CASA landscape would benefit from the district court’s preliminary consideration of the question.

The plaintiff states, led by New Jersey, had already sought further briefing at the district court, and U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, on July 2, already set a schedule for supplemental briefing.

DOJ’s brief is due Tuesday, a response is due from the plaintiffs by July 15, and DOJ’s reply is due by noon July 17. The hearing will be held at 10:00 a.m. July 18.

[UPDATE, 3:00 p.m. July 8: The July 3 order from the First Circuit, in turn, prompted the states in the Washington case, to request on July 4 that the Ninth Circuit remand that case to the district court for the limited purpose of conducting “further proceedings in light of CASA.“ The states sought quick relief there, noting that no response was even required for such an order, but DOJ filed its response and the states filed a reply on July 7 and the Ninth Circuit had taken no action by noon PT Tuesday — notable mainly given the still-currently-in-place Friday deadline for Ninth Circuit briefs.]

All of that, however, is only the multistate cases. A key part of Barrett’s opinion in CASA was an assessment that individual plaintiffs can seek for broader relief through class-action litigation. That process involves additional steps — and creates new complications not present where seeking a universal injunction — but it is a real path forward, particularly for cases backed by advocacy organizations and private lawyers.

The CASA v. Trump case plaintiffs themselves filed an amended complaint that day as well, turning the case into a class-action lawsuit and seeking class certification and a temporary restraining order regarding their claims.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman held a quick hearing on that the next Monday, June 30, at which DOJ raised a number of objections to class certification, some of which related to the fact that organization members would already have relief under even a narrowed post-CASA injunction in the case.

Boardman decided to consider the TRO request as a preliminary injunction request — which will allow fuller consideration and makes appellate process clearer — set a briefing schedule at the hearing, including on class certification.

DOJ filed its opposition on Monday. The plaintiffs’ reply is due by 5 p.m. Wednesday.

The ACLU, meanwhile, filed a new lawsuit, Barbara v. Trump, in federal court in New Hampshire on June 27, seeking class certification and a classwide preliminary injunction.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante held a hearing on the new lawsuit on June 30 and set a briefing and argument schedule on the new case. (Laplante had earlier considered another case addressing the executive order and issued a more limited preliminary injunction than in the other cases, which remains on appeal at the First Circuit.)

DOJ opposed class certification and the preliminary injunction request on July 3, making clear — as expected — that DOJ will be fighting class relief now that the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court ended universal injunctions. (DOJ made that expectation explicit in an unrelated case in which the Trump administration is seeking to block class certification, attacking the certified class in that case as “a sprawling global class in blatant circumvention of the prohibition on nationwide injunctions.“)

The plaintiffs filed their reply on Monday. Arguments are set for Thursday.

Expect a lot of action in the next few weeks — including potentially with other cases — as these arguments become opinions, which will become appeals, which will lead to further orders, which will undoubtedly end up back on the Supreme Court’s shadow docket before the month ends.

The law firm cases

The four federal judges — appointed by presidents of both parties — hearing the four cases challenging Trump executive orders targeting law firms — Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey — have all agreed the orders are unconstitutional and “null and void” as multiple of the judges have ruled.

Unlike its actions across the board in many other cases, DOJ did not try to appeal the temporary restraining orders in these cases. And, also unlike some other cases, DOJ did not immediately appeal the evening that an injunction was issued. Instead, in the first of the final judgments in these cases — the Perkins Coie challenge — DOJ, which has 60 days to appeal a judgment, waited until the 59th day, on June 30, to file its notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

It has taken no appeal yet in the other three cases.

In short, even DOJ — even this DOJ — appears to know what a lawless loser these cases are.

The Alien Enemies Act cases

The Trump administration has appealed the first two decisions against the legality of Trump’s March 15 invocation of the Alien Enemies Act — out of the Southern District of Texas and the Southern District of New York. On June 27, DOJ filed its notice of appeal in the Texas case, J.A.V. v. Trump — the first final judgment entered against Trump’s action. On July 3, DOJ filed its notice of appeal in the New York case, G.F.F. v. Trump. [On July 7, DOJ filed its notice of appeal in a Colorado case, D.B.U. v. Trump.]

In the case that went up to the U.S. Supreme Court out of the Northern District of Texas, meanwhile, after a district judge and appeals court initially denied relief, arguments were held at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on June 30 before Judges Leslie Southwick (George W. Bush), Andy Oldham (Trump), and Irma Carrillo Ramirez (Biden). Those arguments in W.M.M. v. Trump followed the 7-2 Supreme Court ruling that more process was required than the Trump administration was giving to those it was seeking to remove under the AEA proclamation — and not ruling on the underlying question about whether Trump properly invoked the AEA.

However, the biggest news in the cases on Monday came in the original J.G.G. v. Trump litigation before Chief Judge James Boasberg in federal court in D.C. There, the lawyers at the ACLU and Democracy Forward representing the people at El Salvador’s CECOT prison filed a bombshell document about El Salvador’s claims regarding the agreement it reached with the U.S.

In the case, the lawyers for those in CECOT previously argued that the U.S. maintains constructive custody over the people it sent to CECOT, but the Justice Department, through a declaration from a State Department official, asserted that, as Boasberg summed it up quoting from the declaration, “both ‘detention’ and ‘ultimate disposition’ of CECOT Plaintiffs ‘are matters within the legal authority of El Salvador.’” Based in large part on that declaration, Boasberg ruled last month that, though it was “a close question,” the petitioners hadn’t proven that the U.S. maintained constructive custody of the people on “the current record” — although he provided other relief.

A bombshell development on Monday questions that “constructive custody” record and could upend the Trump administration’s argument in the case — and to the public.

Documents the petitioners filed in the case allege that officials from El Salvador told the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) that the country’s “authorities have not arrested, detained, or transferred the persons referred to in the communications of the Working Group.” El Salvador, per the U.N. working group’s report attached to the filing, acknowledged that it had “facilitated the use of the Salvadoran prison infrastructure" by the U.S. — but also stated that, “[i]n this context, the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these persons lie exclusively with the" U.S.

As Boasberg noted in his June opinion, the federal declaration came from Michael G. Kozak, who serves as the Senior Bureau Official with the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the State Department.

Boasberg also noted his difficulty with accepting Kozak’s claims — and issued a warning at the time.

“This conclusion, to be sure, presumes the truthfulness and reliability of the Kozak Declaration, which is rendered more difficult given the Government’s troubling conduct throughout this case,” he wrote, later, “The Court … reminds the Government that any official who makes knowingly false statements in a sworn declaration subjects himself to perjury prosecution.“

The lawyers challenging the Trump administration specifically alleged in their Monday filing that “this new evidence contradicts the underlying custody conclusion in the Kozak Declaration of May 9, 2025, which is dated after El Salvador’s responses to the UN and after Petitioners sought habeas review (the date habeas attaches).“

Law Dork will certainly have more on the fallout of Monday’s filing.

Law Dork out and about

On Tuesday evening, I’ll be joining Democracy Forward for a really important event as we move forward in this moment.

Join us! More information can be found here, where you can also sign up for the virtual event.