The U.S. government’s prosecution of Nicolás Maduro is significant in its own right, but its effect is stretching to litigation beyond the historic criminal case against the Venezuelan dictator. The Department of Justice has already used it to delay a deadline in another case for which it had to submit a plan to provide due process to Venezuelan nationals summarily deported under President Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.
Last month, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., imposed a two-week deadline that ended Jan. 5. The Obama-appointee wrote that Venezuelan migrants were denied the due-process right to challenge their removals when the U.S. sent them to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, in March. They were subsequently sent back to Venezuela.
In his ruling last month, Boasberg noted that some people might prefer to stay in Venezuela, but that they needed the chance to claim their rights if they want to. The judge didn’t demand that the government facilitate their return (as a judge famously did for Kilmar Abrego Garcia), although he gave that as one option. He also said the government could “offer Plaintiffs a hearing without returning them to the United States so long as such hearing satisfied the requirements of due process.”
But over the weekend ahead of Monday’s deadline, the U.S. took Maduro from Venezuela and brought him and his wife to New York to face a federal drug and weapons indictment, to which they pleaded not guilty on Monday.
On the eve of its deadline to Boasberg in D.C., the DOJ on Sunday filed a motion for a weeklong extension.
“Given substantial changes on the ground in Venezuela and the fluid nature of the unfolding situation, [government] Defendants respectfully move for an extension to respond to this Court’s Order … directing them to propose a remedy by Monday, January 5. Over the weekend, the United States apprehended Nicolas Maduro. As a result, the situation on the ground in Venezuela has changed dramatically. Defendants thus need additional time to determine the feasibility of various proposals,” the extension motion said.
After Boasberg noted that the government failed to get the plaintiffs’ input first, the DOJ on Monday filed a follow-up notice that said the plaintiffs agreed to the extension on the condition that the government not seek further delays. The DOJ said it couldn’t agree to that condition, due to what it called “the fluid situation.”
Boasberg then granted the extension to Monday, Jan. 12, reminding the DOJ that what’s due is “its proposal either to facilitate the return of Plaintiffs to the United States or to otherwise provide them with hearings that satisfy the requirements of due process.”
Given the “fluid situation” (as the DOJ put it), we’ll see if that proposal comes by the new deadline or whether the DOJ seeks further delay.
Boasberg has separately sought to launch a contempt inquiry into government officials for violating his order not to relinquish custody of the migrants in March while he was examining the legality of the government’s actions. Contempt proceedings were put on hold by a federal appellate panel with Trump-appointed judges in the majority, and litigation over the next steps in that separate matter is proceeding in the appeals court.
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