博客

Civil rights attorneys predict charges against Don Lemon, others will be dismissed, citing flaws in FACE Act

2026-02-12T10:12:18-0500 / CBS News

The indictment against journalist Don Lemon and eight others will likely be dismissed because it hinges on a charge that is viewed as so constitutionally flawed that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has never attempted to use it to prosecute interference in a house of worship, legal experts say.

The Jan. 29 indictment alleges that the defendants’ involvement in an anti-ICE protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul violated the FACE Act, which prohibits people from intimidating or interfering with people exercising their constitutional freedom to practice religion. It also charges them with a felony of conspiring to interfere with individuals’ religious rights.

They are due to be arraigned on Friday.

The problem, some former Civil Rights Division lawyers say, is that the section in the FACE Act criminalizing interference at houses of worship fundamentally misstates the rights people have under the First Amendment.

The First Amendment protects individuals’ religious freedom from government interference. But it does not protect them from interference by private individuals, like the protesters and journalists charged in the indictment, they say.

Congress passed the FACE Act in 1994 to address rising concerns about threats and intimidation that women were facing at reproductive health clinics.

Since then, it has only been used by the Justice Department to prosecute people accused of interfering with access to medical care at such clinics — and not at houses of worship — because courts have found that interfering with access to a reproductive health clinic impacts interstate commerce.

The constitutional problems with the law, as related to worshipers, are part of the reason prosecutors have never attempted to use it in a religious freedom case.

It’s also just one in a series of red flags that former Justice Department officials believe could spell trouble for the case and lead to a quick dismissal.

“This is not a legitimate use of the FACE Act. This is wholly outside the core purpose that the law was passed, and I will not be surprised if these cases are quickly thrown out,” said Kristen Clarke, the former Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.

A Justice Department spokesperson did not respond to questions about the decision to use the FACE Act in this case.

No probable cause and no career prosecutors

---

From the moment the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division tried to charge Lemon, journalist Georgia Fort, Lemon’s driver and local activists who attended the protest, officials have run into road blocks.

Lemon’s attorney has previously said he was there to cover the event in his capacity as a journalist, whose activities are protected by the First Amendment.

The affidavit in support of the complaint was made by an ICE agent with less than a year of experience. Affidavits in cases like this are usually filed by FBI agents, since they are the ones investigating criminal civil rights violations.

Doug Micko, a magistrate judge in the District of Minnesota, rejected arrest warrants for Lemon and four others on the FACE Act misdemeanor charge and a second felony civil rights charge alleging they conspired to violate the churchgoers’ rights.

He also rejected the FACE Act charge for several others who were arrested, including prominent local activists Nekima Levy Armstrong and Chauntyll Allen, writing “no probable cause” in the margin of the warrants.

“This isn’t a prosecution of First Amendment rights — this prosecution is a violation of First Amendment rights,” Levy Armstrong’s attorney Jordan Kushner told CBS News.

When the Justice Department asked the chief judge to review Micko’s decision, and he was unable to respond as quickly as the department wanted, it asked a federal appellate court to intervene and force the lower court to sign the arrest warrants. That court declined to do so.

In court filings related to the appeal, Minnesota Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz also criticized the strength of the evidence against the journalists, noting “there is no evidence” that they “engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so.”

Career prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota, meanwhile, also refused to get involved in the case because they were concerned about the lack of evidence that the defendants had committed a federal crime, a source previously told CBS News.

Despite resistance from judges and career prosecutors, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division rushed to indict Lemon, Fort, and the co-defendants for violating the FACE Act and for conspiring to interfere with the churchgoers’ religious rights.

The indictment only names politically appointed Justice Department lawyers in the Civil Rights Division.

File photo identifying Justice Department Civil Division counsel Orlando Sonza as a 2022 Criminal Division Legal Summer Intern and then law clerk in the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office. Sonza’s personnel file in Hamilton County, obtained through public records request

One of the main attorneys assigned to the case — Orlando Sonza — is a failed Ohio Republican congressional candidate who graduated from law school in 2022 and whose only prosecutorial experience until now entailed working in the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office over the course of about a year and a half as an intern, a law clerk and assistant prosecutor, according to his personnel file seen by CBS News.

A second Civil Rights Division attorney who was added to the case after the indictment was returned, Greta Gieseke, is also a 2022 law school graduate who is assigned to the Civil Rights Division’s appellate section.

A third lawyer added to the case, Josh Zuckerman, is a 2020 law school graduate who worked as an associate for four years at the multinational law firm Gibson Dunn before joining the Justice Department.

A few hours after CBS News sought comment, Civil Rights Division Acting Deputy Associate Attorney General Robert Keenan, who previously appeared in court during an initial appearance for several of the defendants, formally entered an appearance in the case.

Keenan is a longtime federal prosecutor from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Orange County, California, though he has not handled many civil rights matters, a review of court filings show.

He was co-counsel on a 2001 color of law prosecution involving two jail employees, one of whom was acquitted at trial, according to court filings and sources familiar with the matter.

Last year, he argued that a local deputy sheriff convicted of civil rights violations in California should have the felony counts struck and should not serve prison time, prompting several of his colleagues to resign.

A few months later, he was dispatched to Louisville to handle the sentencing for a former Louisville police officer who was convicted of violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights, where the Justice Department recommended the judge to impose a sentence of just one day of imprisonment and three years of supervised release.

“The Department of Justice stands firmly behind the highly qualified attorneys entrusted with enforcing federal law,” a department spokeswoman told CBS News.

She added that Sonza helped convict a defendant in a felony rape trial in Ohio, while Gieseke handled “complex civil and criminal matters” while clerking in federal district and appellate courts.

Keenan, she added, “is a career federal prosecutor with more than 25 years of experience.”

Since the indictment was returned, Magistrate Judge Micko has scolded the lawyers on the case for divulging the details of sealed filings in public court documents, and warned them that future violations “will not be tolerated.”

“When a federal prosecutor makes a decision to charge someone criminally, it is imperative that the Justice Department have a seasoned, sage and experienced prosecutor to vet that process,” said Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor. “When politics enters that process, bad things happen.”

One defendant in the Minnesota case filed a motion this week to dismiss the indictment, arguing that it fails to state a federal offense against him.

Uneven enforcement of FACE Act under Bondi

---

When it was enacted 31 years ago, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, was primarily intended to prevent patients at reproductive health clinics from facing threats as they sought care.

To win Republican support in Congress, GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah extended it to include houses of worship as a compromise with Democrats.

Over the years, the Justice Department has successfully secured convictions against both abortion opponents trying to block access to reproductive health clinics and abortion rights activists.

The reason why that part of the law has proven successful is because courts have found that reproductive health clinics are commercial businesses, and therefore engaged in interstate commerce, said Laura-Kate Bernstein, a former Civil Rights Division prosecutor who handled FACE Act cases.

“There is a wealth of litigation and circuit court decisions holding that the reproductive health aspect of the FACE Act are constitutional,” she told CBS News, noting that health care clinics are “inherently interstate” in how they operate because they receive medical supplies and offer services to out-of-state patients.

A church, however, is typically a local operation that is not engaged in interstate commerce. That and the constitutional concerns have made it untenable to use in any criminal case, she said.

“There really is no interstate commerce clause hook,” she said, noting that the indictment also fails to cite one.

Even as the Justice Department has sought to use the FACE Act as a prosecutorial tool in this case, it has scaled back enforcement in other contexts.

Three days after President Trump took office, he issued nearly two dozen pardons to anti-abortion activists who were charged in FACE Act cases.

The following day, the former acting Associate Attorney General Chad Mizelle ordered the Civil Rights Division to immediately dismiss three pending FACE Act prosecutions involving anti-abortion activists and to cease pursuing any new cases unless they had permission from the head of the division.

Pam Bondi, on her first day as attorney general, ordered the Weaponization Working Group to review prior FACE Act prosecutions during President Joe Biden’s tenure to see if they unfairly targeted conservative Christians.

A review of those cases is still pending and is expected to be conducted, according to one source with direct knowledge of the working group’s plans.

At the same time, however, the Justice Department has allowed FACE Act cases involving protesters at crisis pregnancy centers that discourage abortions to continue without interference.

In one such case, the Justice Department’s career civil rights prosecutors were permitted to proceed with a criminal case in Florida’s Middle District against abortion rights activists who were accused of trying to scare volunteers and workers at a crisis pregnancy clinic that counseled on alternatives to abortion.

The defendant who went to trial was ultimately sentenced to a 120-day prison term in March 2025.

Some former department lawyers say the uneven application of the FACE Act is evidence of the weaponization of the Justice Department against Mr. Trump’s political enemies.

“We have seen across the civil rights statutes that the department enforces the ways in which they have weaponized the use of these laws, not to protect the civil rights of people of this country, but to further their political agenda,” said Johnathan Smith, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division.

“I think this use of the FACE Act is consistent with that pattern.”

热带气旋“格扎尼”过境 马达加斯加进入“国家灾难状态”

2026年2月12日 23:55 / 联合早报

2月11日，热带气旋“格扎尼”在马达加斯加港口城市图阿马西纳肆虐，所经之处满目疮痍。 （路透社）

马达加斯加政府发布政令，宣布受热带气旋“格扎尼”过境影响，马达加斯加进入“国家灾难状态”。

政令星期三（2月11日）说，热带气旋“格扎尼”（Gezani）过境造成人员伤亡、基础设施和住房被毁，一些地区损失惨重，马达加斯加依法宣布进入“国家灾难状态”，政府负责组织救援。

新华社报道，“格扎尼”10日在马达加斯加东部城市图阿马西纳（Toamasina）登陆，据马达加斯加国家风险和灾害管理办公室11日发布的最新数据，“格扎尼”致逾25万人受灾。

灾害管理办公室星期四公布了最新伤亡人数，称“格扎尼”在第二大城市图阿马西纳导致至少35人死亡，并造成严重破坏。

“格扎尼”登陆时的风速高达每小时250公里（155英里）。灾害管理办公室说，已记录35人死亡，另有六人失踪，至少374人受伤，多达8800人流离失所。

马达加斯加新任领导人兰德里亚尼里纳星期四（12日）呼吁国际社会“团结一致”给予支援，此前狂风摧毁了图阿马西纳及其周边地区高达75%的地区。

马达加斯加是非洲第一大岛，位于西印度洋海域，每年12月至次年3月是热带气旋多发季。

NY Fed report says Americans pay for almost all of Trump’s tariffs

February 12, 2026 4:16 PM UTC / Reuters

By Michael S. Derby

节点运行失败

The container ship Talos passes under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge to arrive in New York Harbor in New York City, U.S., January 16, 2026. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

• Summary

• NY Fed report finds Americans pay almost all of Trump’s tariffs
• Fed officials tie tariffs to inflation overshoot
• Tariff outlook uncertain amid court, legislative action

Feb 12 (Reuters) – Americans are shouldering almost all of President Donald Trump’s import tax surge, a report, opens new tab from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said on Thursday.

The bank said 90% of the tariffs imposed by the president on imported goods are borne by American consumers and companies. The report pushes back against the Trump administration’s argument that the levies are paid by foreigners.

The Reuters Inside Track newsletter is your essential guide to the biggest events in global sport. Sign up here.

The report evaluated how tariffs impacted the economy last year, when the average of the taxes went from 2.6% to 13%. The report noted that the average level shifted over the course of the year and was at its highest in April and May, when Trump pumped up tariffs on Chinese goods to 125% before lowering them back to a still heady 113%.

Advertisement · Scroll to continue

Report Ad

The authors based their analysis on how tariffs worked in the first Trump term. When faced with these types of taxes, “our past work found that foreign exporters did not lower their prices at all, so the full incidence of the tariffs was borne by the U.S. That is, there was 100% pass-through from tariffs into import prices.”

The paper said that between January and August of last year Americans took 94% of the hit from Trump’s tariffs. During September and October, that ebbed to 92%, settling to 86% in November.

The New York Fed findings jibe with a report, opens new tab put out by the Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday.

Advertisement · Scroll to continue

It said “higher tariffs directly increase the cost of imported goods, raising prices for U.S. consumers and businesses.” When it comes to who will pay the tariffs, the CBO said foreign exporters will absorb 5% of the cost, and in the near term, “U.S. businesses will absorb 30% of the import price increases by reducing their profit margins; the remaining 70% will be passed through to consumers by raising prices.”

TAX TROUBLE

The imposition of the large taxes on imported goods is a cornerstone of the Trump administration’s policy regime. They are being used to raise revenue for the government, and as a tool to punish other nations the president believes are taking advantage of the U.S., and as a mechanism to re-shore industry.

The imposition of the tariffs has been highly erratic, with the routine imposition of large increases followed by retreats and delays, generating periods of large volatility in financial markets and creating uncertainty in the broader economy.

Federal Reserve officials believe that much of the overshoot of their 2% inflation target this year is related to trade tariffs, and that has complicated their ability to cut interest rates after 75 basis points worth of easing last year, which was done in large part to support the job market.

On Friday, the government will release its latest report on the state of consumer prices in January. Economists expect to see a slight moderation in the year-over-year headline reading for the closely watched gauge.

Fed officials expect tariff impacts to wane as the year moves forward and to likely represent a one-time increase in the price level. That could open the door to more rate cuts, although it also means that the tariffs are likely to lead to an overall increase in the cost of living faced by Americans.

That said, at least one Fed official sees a more benign situation with the tariffs. Speaking on Monday, Fed Governor Stephen Miran, formerly a top economic advisor to the president, argued tariff impacts on the economy have been “quite muted” and the data doesn’t support the idea American businesses are in fact passing on their higher costs directly to those in the U.S.

The Trump administration faced a potential major setback in some of its tariff powers on Wednesday, when the House of Representatives voted to end his emergency tariffs on Canada. The Supreme Court is also set to rule at some point on the legality of many of Trump’s tariffs.

Reporting by Michael S. Derby; Editing by Andrea Ricci

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Trump officials oust Abigail Slater as DOJ’s antitrust chief, sources say

Updated on: February 12, 2026 / 12:35 PM EST / CBS News

Top Trump administration officials had decided to oust Justice Department antitrust chief Abigail Slater and had discussions with her shortly before she announced on social media that she was leaving the department, sources told CBS News.

Slater didn’t cite a reason for her departure in her statement on X, where she wrote, “It is with great sadness and abiding hope that I leave my role as AAG for Antitrust today.”

But she had lost the trust of Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

File: Abigail Slater, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, speaks outside federal court in Washington on April 21, 2025. Kent Nishimura / Bloomberg via Getty Images

In her post as assistant attorney general for antitrust, she determined whether business merger deals would be approved or get derailed, and her every move was closely watched by the business community.

Trump officials believed Slater had undermined pending cases because of disagreements with leadership and had disobeyed requests, including to not embark on expensive travel to Europe and on other matters, two sources said. On one occasion, Slater angered Bondi when she traveled to a conference in Paris without Bondi’s permission, prompting Bondi to cut off access to Slater’s government credit cards, one source said.

Vice President JD Vance was aware of the fraught dynamics with Slater at the agency, two sources said.

Bondi in a statement to CBS News said: “On behalf of the Department of Justice, we thank Gail Slater for her service to the Antitrust Division which works to protect consumers, promote affordability, and expand economic opportunity.”

Slater had been on the job for less than a year. Her exit marks the end of a short tenure that was fraught with tension between her office and senior department leaders, sources told CBS News.

Justice officials have placed Omeed Assefi in the role as acting antitrust chief, three sources said.

Earlier this month, Semafor reported that Slater had announced on her X account that her chief of staff would be stepping down, only to later delete the post. According to Semafor, Slater had sought to terminate Sara Matar by not renewing her contract, but was overruled by Bondi.

And amid a dispute related to the Justice Department’s settlement greenlighting Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks, Justice Department chief of staff and Acting Associate Attorney General Chad Mizelle fired Roger Alford, who had served in the first Trump administration and was Slater’s top deputy, and Bill Rinner, a former counsel at hedge fund Apollo Global Management who was in charge of merger enforcement.

In a scathing speech in August, Alford blasted “MAGA-In-Name-Only lobbyists and DOJ officials” who were pursuing an antitrust agenda that curried favor with special interests.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this report said Abigail Slater had fired Roger Alford and Bill Rinner, but then-Justice Department chief of staff Chad Mizelle fired Alford and Rinner. The article has been updated.

Gallup ends its presidential tracking poll, the latest shift in the public opinion landscape

PUBLISHED Feb 12, 2026, 10:41 AM ET / CNN

By

[Jennifer Agiesta]

3 hr ago

The White House on February 10, 2026.

Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Gallup, one of the country’s most well-known polling firms, announced Wednesday that it will no longer track presidential approval or favorability of political figures. The move ends the longest-running continuous effort to track US opinion of the nation’s president, dating back to the tenure of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the late 1930s.

The company attributes the change to a shift toward research on “issues and conditions that shape people’s lives.” Gallup has some of the longest trend data in polling on public opinion about prominent issues and the nation’s mood, which it plans to continue, and says that it will no longer “publish assessments of individual political figures.”

The end of presidential approval tracking at Gallup is the latest in a long line of shifts that have remade the landscape of polling over the last few decades.

Some major public pollsters, including Gallup, stepped back from conducting polling on which candidate voters prefer, sometimes referred to as horserace polling. Changes in the ways people communicate made it harder, more time-consuming and more expensive to conduct polling by telephone, long the gold-standard of survey methodology and the methodology Gallup has used for its presidential approval tracking. That’s led to major shifts in how public pollsters do their work.

And long-running, prominent public polling partnerships – such as CNN’s former partnership with Gallup and USA Today, the partnership between CBS News and the New York Times, and between NBC News and the Wall Street Journal – have ended or changed.

The standard job approval question used by Gallup since the presidency of Harry S. Truman – “do you approve or disapprove of the way (name) is handling his job as president” – has been adopted and carried forward by hundreds of researchers since. CNN’s most recent tracking of polls on President Donald Trump’s approval rating includes 134 high-quality polls on that metric conducted by someone other than Gallup since the start of his second term in office.

Trump’s current average approval rating in the CNN Poll of Polls stands at 39% approve to 59% disapprove, similar to Gallup’s final measure in December 2025, which found 36% of Americans approving of Trump with 59% disapproving.

CNN’s Ariel Edwards-Levy contributed to this report.

Southwest says its has “some kinks we are trying to work out” after launching new boarding process

February 12, 2026 / 11:45 AM EST / CBS News

Southwest Airlines is still working out kinks in its boarding process two weeks after the discount carrier switched to assigned seating.

Southwest officials told CBS News that one of the main issues the airline is troubleshooting is overhead bin space. In some cases, customers who are part of the airline’s loyalty program and others who paid for extra legroom are finding they don’t have storage above their seats because early boarders are taking up the overhead compartments at the front of the plane. This is forcing them to walk back several rows to store their bags.

The issue, which could slow boarding and deplaning, has sparked ire among loyal Southwest customers, with some taking to social media to voice their complaints.

“On a Southwest flight for work and it’s actually awful. New process is terrible. I’m in row four. Boarding group 5, no overhead bin space until rows 20. Actually insane. @SouthwestAir,” one X user wrote on Monday.

Some flyers are also expressing frustration with how seats are assigned. Southwest announced in July 2024 that it was scrapping its decades-old policy, which allowed customers to choose cabin seats on a first-come, first-served basis. The airline now offers assigned seats, while giving passengers the choice to pay for certain seats, including those offering more legroom.

One X user said Thursday that his two-year-old was assigned a seat in a row without any family members. “My wife and two kids (5 and 2) are flying @SouthwestAir today. And because I refuse to pay for seats, their seats were auto-assigned,” he wrote. “My 2 year old in his own row without his mom or sister.”

Southwest says its own research found 80% of its flyers preferred assigned seats. The airline spent years testing the boarding process using computer simulations and in-person tests meant to mimic real-world conditions.

Southwest is now making adjustments to address some of the issues that have cropped up, an airline official told CBS News senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave. The changes are expected to be rolled out in the near future and will likely involve having premium and elite flyers board earlier.

“I think that we should expect some hiccups — that’s inevitable,” Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst at Atmosphere Research Group, told correspondent Kris Van Cleave in a January interview.

“It’s going to be a huge change,” he said. “The airline is abandoning a 50-plus-year-old business practice and adopting something that is tried and true by every other airline in the U.S., so hopefully it works well. There will be some teething pains; that’s to be expected. But Southwest says that they are prepared for it.”

Edited by Aimee Picchi

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/southwest-airlines-launches-assigned-seating-new-boarding-process/

Savannah Guthrie shares video clips of her missing mom Nancy when she was younger: “We will never give up on her”

February 12, 2026 / 11:55 AM EST / CBS News

Savannah Guthrie shared two throwback video clips and a family photo of her mother Nancy Guthrie on Instagram as she remains missing for a second week.

“Our lovely mom,” Savannah Guthrie wrote in the caption Thursday, alongside a yellow heart. “We will never give up on her. Thank you for your prayers and hope.”

Savannah Guthrie has two siblings: Annie and Camron Guthrie. The videos and image appear to show the three of them when they were young children, and in one clip, they are smelling flowers.

Savannah Guthrie and her siblings have been pleading for their mother’s safe return, using social media to appeal directly to whoever may have taken their mother and to ask for the public’s assistance.

Authorities have yet to identify a suspect or motive in the 84-year-old’s disappearance. In what could be a major break in the case, a pair of black gloves was found near her home and will be tested for DNA, sources close to the investigation told CBS News.

Video from the New York Post shows investigators picking up one of the gloves from the side of a road. The glove, seen in images, resembles one on the hand of a masked person who was caught on video outside Nancy Guthrie’s home the night she disappeared. The person was also wearing an apparent weapon and a backpack.

Nancy Guthrie was reported missing on Feb. 1 after not showing up for church. She had been dropped off at home by her son-in-law Tommaso Cioni the night before, and authorities believe she was abducted overnight.

1/1 Skip Ad Continue watching after the ad

Nancy Guthrie has limited mobility and relies on daily medication, according to officials.

The FBI is working to find out who is behind a ransom note that was first sent to CBS News’ Tucson affiliate KOLD demanding bitcoin. An apparent second deadline for payment passed on Monday.

A law enforcement source told CBS News that blood was found inside the house. Blood found outside the home was confirmed to belong to Nancy Guthrie.

Neighbors have been urged to share any home video camera footage. Anyone with information about Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance is being asked to call (520)-882-7463. The FBI announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to her recovery or the arrest and conviction of people involved in her disappearance.

DOJ considers referring federal judges to Congress for impeachment | Fox News

https://www.foxnews.com/video/5614615980001

Janet Mills launches ad hitting Susan Collins as ‘always concerned, but never courageous’ in key Maine Senate contest | CNN Politics

Published 1:39 PM EST, Thu February 12, 2026 / CNN

Two days after Sen. Susan Collins announced she’s running for re-election, Democratic challenger Gov. Janet Mills has a new ad attacking Collins’ record in the Senate. CNN’s Dana Bash and the “Inside Politics” panel analyze what the ad says about Mills’ campaign and her Democratic primary contest against Graham Platner. “She is trying to show people…I am going to fight harder than Graham Platner is saying that he’s going to fight,” Edward-Isaac Dovere tells Bash.

Judge orders Trump administration to facilitate return of some Venezuelan migrants deported under Alien Enemies Act

February 12, 2026 / 1:25 PM EST / CBS News

Washington — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of certain Venezuelan migrants who he found were unlawfully deported to a Salvadoran prison under the Alien Enemies Act last year and then released into other countries.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said in a brief opinion that the number of Venezuelans who would likely want to be returned to the U.S. to continue challenging their detentions and removals is small, and acknowledged that they will be taken into immigration custody upon their arrival.

Still, he gave lawyers for the Venezuelan men until Feb. 27 to inform him of the number of plaintiffs who want to travel on their own to a U.S. port of entry or wish to be flown from a third country to the U.S. for court proceedings.

“These men suffered brutal abuse and torture because the Trump administration treated due process as optional,” Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the ACLU who is representing the migrants, told CBS News. “The Court rightly has grown frustrated with the administration’s stalling tactics and has now taken the critical first step to provide these men with a chance to present their cases.”

Boasberg’s decision stems from a December ruling that the Trump administration had denied due process to a class of 137 Venezuelans who were deported to El Salvador last March under the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law invoked by President Trump to summarily remove Venezuelans who were accused of being members of the gang Tren de Aragua.

In earlier stages of the case, the judge had determined that their removals were in defiance of an order that required the Department of Homeland Security to turn around planes bound for a Salvadoran prison with more than 200 Venezuelans on board.

“Against this backdrop, and mindful of the flagrancy of the Government’s violations of the deportees’ due-process rights that landed Plaintiffs in this situation, the Court refuses to let them languish in the solution-less mire Defendants propose,” Boasberg wrote Thursday. “The Court will thus order Defendants to take several discrete actions that will begin the remedial process for at least some Plaintiffs, as the Supreme Court has required in similar circumstances. It does so while treading lightly, as it must, in the area of foreign affairs.”

The judge cited a Supreme Court decision that required the Trump administration to facilitate the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from Salvadoran custody. A top immigration official had acknowledged that Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported back to his home country of El Salvador.

Boasberg said that while he gave the government the opportunity to propose steps to facilitate hearings for the Venezuelan migrants who were challenging their detentions and their alleged gang membership, “the government’s responses essentially told the Court to pound sand.”

“Believing that other courses would be both more productive,” Boasberg wrote that he is ordering the government to “facilitate the return from third countries of those plaintiffs who so desire.” He said other plaintiffs can pursue additional legal claims from overseas.

Boasberg said his order does not apply to those who currently remain in Venezuela, citing ongoing tensions between the U.S. and Venezuelan government following the removal of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last month. Last July, El Salvador agreed to a prisoner swap in which over 250 Venezuelan men who were removed from the U.S. and sent to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison were returned to their home country.

Boasberg wrote that “it is up to the Government to remedy the wrong that it perpetrated here and to provide a means for doing so. Were it otherwise, the Government could simply remove people from the United States without providing any process and then, once they were in a foreign country, deny them any right to return for a hearing or opportunity to present their case from abroad.”

The judge said the federal government must pay for the air travel of those who wish to return to the U.S. He also required the Trump administration to return any passports and identification documents and make “good-faith efforts” to obtain the documents that were transferred to El Salvador.

“It is worth emphasizing that this situation would never have arisen had the Government simply afforded Plaintiffs their constitutional rights before initially deporting them,” Boasberg wrote.

In arguing for this remedy, Gelernt, the ACLU lawyer representing the men in this case, said in an earlier hearing that his team had only gotten in touch with a few of the men who were removed. Boasberg said that the number of Venezuelan migrants who may wish to return to the U.S. as they pursue legal remedies, “would likely be very small if not zero.”