Trump Prevails in Legal Fight Over US-El Salvador Migrant Pact

The Trump administration defeated a lawsuit on Wednesday from nonprofits targeting the government’s agreement with El Salvador to send US-based individuals into confinement in their prisons.

The five suing nonprofit organizations providing legal services to immigrants and criminal defendants failed to demonstrate a favorable ruling would redress their injuries, undermining their standing to sue, Judge James E. Boasberg said in an opinion. The US District Court for the District of Columbia granted the US Department of State’s motion to dismiss the case and denied the nonprofits’ motion for summary judgment.

The nonprofits sued over the agreement with El Salvador to transfer alleged criminals bound for deportation to the county’s mega-prison called the Center for the Compulsory Housing of Terrorism, or CECOT, which the plaintiffs called “inhumane.” The same district court ruled in a different case that more than 100 Venezuelans sent from to El Salvador had their due process rights violated under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

The plaintiffs alleged violations of the Administrative Procedure Act and ultra vires actions by failing to comply with statutory authority, constitutional provisions, and federal regulations, including laws governing habeas corpus, appropriations, and immigration procedures. They claimed the agreement is arbitrary, capricious, contrary to law, conflicts with numerous legal protections, and fails to ensure proper safeguards for those rendered to foreign detention facilities.

While Boasberg acknowledged the nonprofits suffered concrete injuries, including disrupted attorney-client relationships and diverted resources, he concluded vacating the agreement wouldn’t prevent the conduct causing these harms.

“Even if the court vacated the agreement, then, the government could keep using those same statutes to inflict the same injury on plaintiffs,” Boasberg said. “And, as a practical matter, vacating this nonbinding exchange of notes would not change the government’s willingness or ability to do so.”

Boasberg pointed out that the agreement is a nonbinding diplomatic exchange of notes that “creates no legal obligations and confers no new authority.” The district court noted the government’s authority to remove individuals and provide funding stems from existing statutes, not the agreement itself.

Boasberg also determined the agreement didn’t constitute a “final agency action” reviewable under the APA.

“The relevant inquiry under the APA is whether the agreement produces legal consequences in the domestic legal order,” Boasberg said. “As a nonbinding instrument, it does not.”

Democracy Forward Foundation and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights represent the nonprofit groups.

The case is Robert F. Kennedy Center Human Rights v. Dept. of State, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-01774, dismissal order 3/25/26.