Trump-Appointed Judge Holds DHS in Contempt — Again — for Deporting Protected Asylum Seeker to El Salvador Twice
On Friday, Sept. 25, 2026, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher (D. Md., a Trump appointee) found the administration in civil contempt for the second time in the same litigation — the 2019 class-action settlement protecting the asylum rights of immigrants who arrived as unaccompanied minors. This contempt finding covers E.L.A., a young asylum seeker who was deported to El Salvador twice in violation of three court orders. Gallagher ordered the government to return him to the U.S. and to "refrain" from executing any removal orders against him until his asylum case is fully processed, with both parties due to update the court on his return by Oct. 2.
The scale of the underlying violation is larger than one case: per court documents, at least 107 people protected by the settlement — 54 confirmed class members and 53 more the government flagged as potentially protected — were removed under final deportation orders before their asylum claims were decided1. In August, Gallagher had already found DHS in civil contempt, ruling the government was repeatedly removing young asylum seekers it was legally barred from deporting.
As Axios put it: "District Judge Stephanie Gallagher has now found the administration in contempt twice in the same class-action litigation, with Friday's ruling involving a man deported to El Salvador despite three separate court orders."
Why it matters: repeated contempt findings against DHS — from a judge Trump appointed — document a pattern of defying court orders in removals even as the administration asks the Supreme Court to bless its third-country deportation policy (responses in that application, 26A406, are due Sept. 28; see Third-Country Deportations: SCOTUS Lets Them Resume — Again — and Sets an Early-December Merits Argument). The Oct. 2 status update will show whether the government actually returns E.L.A. — or stalls.
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An instance of Deportation is operated as punishment, and the courts keep documenting it. — Repeated contempt findings from a Trump-appointed judge document defiance of removal protections as routine operating practice rather than isolated error. ↩︎