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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s effort to lift U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s block on deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

The appeals court heard arguments Monday over the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act last week to deport more than 200 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador with no due process.

The Trump administration’s attempt to remove alleged migrant gang members in that manner deprives the men of “even a gossamer thread of due process,” Judge Patricia Millett wrote in her concurring opinion.

Disregarding their rights simply because they are unpopular or labeled terrorists, Millet wrote, would mean abandoning the “true mark of this great Nation.”

“The true mark of this great Nation under law is that we adhere to legal requirements even when it is hard, even when important national interests are at stake, and even when the claimant may be unpopular,” she wrote. “For if the government can choose to abandon fair and equal process for some people, it can do the same for everyone.”

Trump last week invoked the Alien Enemies Act — a wartime authority used to deport noncitizens with little-to-no due process — by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States. Boasberg temporarily blocked the president’s use of the law to deport more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvador, calling the removals “awfully frightening” and “incredibly troublesome.”

Boasberg ordered that the government turn around the two flights carrying the alleged gang members, but authorities failed to turn the flights around, saying they were already in international waters.

Judge Millet and Judge Karen Henderson — who was first nominated to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan — determined that Boasberg acted correctly and within his authority when he temporarily blocked any deportations under the AEA.

“The district court entered the TROs [temporary restraining orders] for a quintessentially valid purpose: to protect its remedial authority long enough to consider the parties’ arguments,” Judge Henderson wrote in a concurring opinion.

Judge Justin Walker — a Trump appointee — dissented from the majority because he said the noncitizens should have filed their case in Texas, where they were deported from, rather than Washington, D.C., adding that the lower court’s decisions “threaten irreparable harm to delicate negotiations with foreign powers on matters concerning national security.”

He added that the public interest favors “swiftly removing dangerous aliens” compared to letting the case move through a court that lacks venue over the matter.

“The district court here in Washington, D.C. — 1,475 miles from the El Valle Detention Facility in Raymondville, Texas — is not the right court to hear the Plaintiffs’ claims. The Government likely faces irreparable harm to ongoing, highly sensitive international diplomacy and national-security operations,” he wrote.

Judge Millet pushed back on Walker’s claim that the men should have used habeas corpus to challenge their deportations in a Texas court, writing that such an approach is a “phantasm” of due process because the Trump administration would have removed the men before they could even file a claim.

“The government’s removal scheme denies Plaintiffs even a gossamer thread of due process, even though the government acknowledges their right to judicial review of their removability,” she wrote.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg responded to the Trump administration’s pushback over the publication’s Monday article about a Signal chat discussing a U.S. attack on Houthis in Yemen it says was accidentally shared with Goldberg.

Speaking to ABC News, Goldberg said The White House is engaging in a semantic game by focusing on his use of “attack plans” instead of “war plans” in his followup report, which was published on Wednesday.

“It’s just all nonsense. It’s nonsense. They’re throwing up all these smokescreens to avoid being questioned about why they were so reckless as to have sensitive conversations like this in Signal, and why they invited a journalist and didn’t even know that the journalist was there,” he said on Wednesday. “I mean, war plan, attack plan. I mean, you know, it’s just not nonsense talk, but attack is actually an accurate term for what they were doing.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — A partial solar eclipse will be visible from the U.S. this weekend, but only a select few of the northernmost states are expected to get a glimpse of the cosmic phenomenon.

On early Saturday morning, the moon will pass in front of the sun, casting its shadow for viewers across the Atlantic Ocean, according to NASA. Since the moon, sun and Earth are not perfectly lined up, the movement will result in a partial eclipse, in which the sun will look like a crescent, or like a piece has been taken out of it.

“The moon is not able to block the entirety of the sun,” Lujendra Ojha, an assistant professor at Rutgers University’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, told ABC News.

The shadow of the eclipse moves from west to east, opposite the apparent motion of the Sun and the rest of the sky, according to NASA. The orbital motion of the moon, which is the same direction as Earth’s but twice as fast, determines the direction of the eclipse’s shadow.

Sunspots can sometimes be visible during solar eclipse events, according to NASA.

People in Europe, western Africa, eastern Canada and the Northeast in the U.S. are positioned to see a partial eclipse.

When and where to see the partial solar eclipse from the US

Northeast states such as Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New York will be able to get the best view of the partial solar eclipse, Matthew Newby, an associate professor of physics at Temple University, told ABC News. Regions to the north of the U.S., such as northeastern Canada and Greenland, will likely get the best view globally, Newby said.

Those with the best view may see up to 90% of the sun covered, but the further south you go, the less coverage there will be, Newby said. Maine is expected to experience 80% coverage, while New Hampshire will see about 50% coverage and New York about 30% coverage, Newby said.

The viewing window starts between 6:30 a.m. and 7 a.m. ET for most locations in the U.S. NASA published a list of start times by city.

In the rest of the U.S., the central part of the moon’s shadow will appear to completely miss the Earth, so viewers won’t be able to see the event, according to NASA.

Newby recommended that viewers contact local astronomers to get the most accurate viewing information in your area.

“It should be a beautiful partial eclipse,” Ojha said.

The next partial solar eclipse will take place in September and will be visible from Australia, Antarctica, the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean, according to NASA.

A total solar eclipse will be visible in Greenland, Iceland, Spain and Russia in August 2026.

The next solar eclipse to be visible from the U.S. will take place in January 2028.

How to view the partial solar eclipse safely

Anyone who plans to watch the partial solar eclipse will need safe solar viewing glasses to protect their eyes, according to NASA.

While it is always dangerous to stare directly into the sun, the presence of an eclipse actually gives people a reason to look at it, increasing the likelihood of cases of injured corneas, Newby said.

UV radiation, whether from natural sunlight or artificial rays indoors, can damage the surface tissue, cornea and lens of the eye, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

“Looking at it with your unaided eye can cause permanent vision damage, and staring at the sun with any sort of magnifier that’s not perfectly safe can instantly blind you,” Newby said.

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(WASHINGTON) — In February 2023, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele posted to social media a tightly edited video with dramatic music showing thousands of men, with their heads pushed down, being transferred to the country’s newest prison: the Terrorism Confinement Center.

“Early this morning, in a single operation, we transferred the first 2,000 gang members to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT),” Bukele said on X. “This will be their new home, where they will live for decades, unable to do any more harm to the population.”

Two weeks ago, Bukele posted a similar video on X in which hundreds of men in white uniforms, with their heads shaved, are seen running bent over while being moved into the mega prison. But this time, the individuals weren’t criminals who were arrested in El Salvador.

The video showed CECOT receiving over 200 Venezuelan migrants who are alleged to be members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The migrants were sent to El Salvador by U.S. authorities under the Alien Enemies Act, as part of a $6 million deal the Trump administration arranged in their effort to crack down on illegal immigration.

CECOT, one of Latin America’s largest prisons, was opened as part of a crackdown on criminal gangs in El Salvador, whose incarceration rate is one of the highest in the world. The mega prison, which can hold up to 40,000 detainees, has been criticized by human rights groups over alleged human rights violations.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was scheduled to visit the prison on Wednesday along with the Salvadorian minister of justice.

The move by the Trump administration to deport alleged migrant gang members to a notorious prison in another country, without due process, has sparked an outcry from relatives of some of the detainees and by immigration advocates and attorneys who say that some of those deported were not Tren de Aragua gang members.

An official with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week acknowledged in a sworn declaration that “many” of the noncitizens deported last week under the Alien Enemies Act did not have criminal records in the United States. Administration officials have not been clear about the evidence they have that shows the detainees are gang members.

In a subsequent sworn declaration, ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert Cerna argued that “the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose” and “demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”

The declaration was included in the Trump administration’s recent motion to vacate Judge James Boasberg’s temporary restraining order blocking deportations pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act.

“While it is true that many of the [Tren de Aragua gang] members removed under the AEA do not have criminal records in the United States, that is because they have only been in the United States for a short period of time. The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat,” Cerna said.

Ivannoa Sanchez, who told ABC News that her husband, Jose Franco Caraballo Tiapa, is being held at CECOT, said that he has never been in trouble with the law.

“He has never done anything, not even a fine, absolutely nothing,” said Sanchez.

“I can’t rest, I don’t even eat, I haven’t even had juice or water because I know he isn’t eating either,” Sanchez said.

Juanita Goebertus, the director of the Americas Division of the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, told ABC News that detainees in CECOT, as well as other prisons in El Salvador, are denied communication with their relatives and lawyers, and only make court appearances in online hearings, often in groups of several hundred detainees at the same time.

“The Salvadoran government has described people held in CECOT as ‘terrorists,’ and has said that they ‘will never leave,'” Goebertus said, adding that the Human Rights Watch is not aware of any detainees who have ever been released from CECOT.

According to human rights advocates and immigration attorneys, CECOT prisoners only leave their cell for 30 minutes a day and sleep on metal beds in overcrowded cells.

“They only have about half an hour outside of their windowless cells to be outside in a hallway of the prison,” Margaret Cargioli, an attorney for the nonprofit Immigrant Defenders Law Center, told ABC News. “They are overcrowded within each of the cells, and they’re sleeping on metal.”

For years, Amnesty International has published reports on detention centers and prisons in El Salvador, and has alleged systematic abuse of detainees and “patterns of grave human rights violations.” Those findings were acknowledged in a 2023 human rights report published by the U.S. Department of State that said there have been significant human rights issues in Salvadoran prisons.

Ana Piquer, the Americas director at Amnesty International, called the detainment in El Salvador of the Venezuelan migrants a “disregard of the U.S. human rights obligations.”

“Amnesty International has extensively documented the inhumane conditions within detention centers in El Salvador, including the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) where those removed are now being held, ” Piquer said in a statement. “Reports indicate extreme overcrowding, lack of access to adequate medical care, and widespread ill-treatment amounting to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.”

Attorneys representing some of the Venezuelan migrants told ABC News that the lack of communication is a special concern — as opposed to the U.S., where detainees can communicate with their families and attorneys.

“There’s no communication with family or counsel,” Cargioli said of CECOT. “The concern just raises to an entirely other level.”

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