Rubio rejects judge's options for Venezuelans illegally deported from US

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Source: Politico

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that it is impossible for the United States to retrieve 137 Venezuelan men who were illegally deported in March after President Donald Trump invoked wartime powers to deliver them abruptly to El Salvador.

Those men were subsequently sent to their native Venezuela in a prisoner swap last July. And the United States’ decision to surgically remove Nicolas Maduro from power earlier this month has left relations between the two countries in a “delicate” state of flux, the top U.S. diplomat wrote in a two-page legal declaration.

Rubio said any effort to inject the fate of the 137 men into nascent negotiations with Venezuela’s new leader, Delcy Rodriguez, would “risk material damage to U.S. foreign policy interests.”

“The United States remains involved to see changes in Venezuela that are beneficial to the United States and that it also expects will be beneficial for the people of Venezuela, who have suffered tremendously. These efforts entail ongoing, intensive, and extraordinarily delicate engagement with elements within the regime of Maduro’s successor, so-called Acting President Delcy Rodríguez,” Rubio wrote, without offering further detail on how U.S. interests were likely to be undercut by negotiating over the deportees.

The secretary’s characterization of the fraught relationship between Venezuela and the United States came in response to an inquiry from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who ruled last year that the abrupt deportation of the 137 men violated their due process rights and defied his own order to keep them in U.S. custody. Boasberg has ruled that despite the men’s return to Venezuela, they must be afforded the due process they were denied last year.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/13/rubio-venezeula-deported-boasberg-00724060?utm_content=topic/news/&utm_source=flipboard

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Rubio rejects judge’s options for Venezuelans illegally deported from US - POLITICO

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— (@oc88.bsky.social) 2026-01-13T09:57:56.191Z

[ancianita]

1. Just like his boss, the felon: delay, delay, let VZ chaos unfold, then when ordered, say "too late, judge, no can do."

imho, Boasberg should hold Rubio and the other defendants in the case in contempt of court for violating his orders three times. Heavily fine Rubio & defendants every single day they don't do what Boasberg ordered them to do.

Rejecting a court ruling is never optional.

[Javaman]

7. as I have said in the past, robot rubio is the easiest programmable sycophant of the bunch. nt

[underpants]

2. Are we running Venezuela or not?

[otchmoson]

3. But Trump stated

that HE was the president of Venezuela. Marco--go see your boss.

[C_U_L8R]

4. It wasn't a choice, Marco.

So you’re going to do the contempt thing. Pass the popcorn, please.

[maxsolomon]

8. Why wouldn't they?

Should there ever be consequences for contempt of court, Trump would pardon.

They can act with impunity.

[C_U_L8R]

9. Is a pardon valid if it's part of the scheme?

This self-pardoning nonsense is a huge boom to crime. At least Trump crime.

[maxsolomon]

10. I think the only limit is State Convictions.

The Founders didn't anticipate Trump or his schemes.

[cstanleytech]

5. It's not impossible, it's just time consuming.

[Lonestarblue]

6. It is not impossible. You simply don't want to do it.

We taxpayers are paying a corrupt El Salvador government to keep these people and torture them. We can demand their return at any time. If the El Salvador officials refuse , cut off all payments and send in the military Trump likes to use illegally to retrieve them.